Amedisys, a major provider of home health and hospice care, has agreed to pay a $1.1 million civil penalty to settle allegations that it violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act during the antitrust review of its pending $3.3 billion acquisition by UnitedHealth’s Optum division.

What Happened

In December 2023, while responding to a DOJ “Second Request” for information, a mandatory step in large merger reviews, Amedisys filed a sworn certification that its production was “true, correct, and complete.” In reality, the company knew that its email archiving system had malfunctioned, causing the loss of a month’s worth of emails from May–June 2023, a critical period in the merger negotiations.

Rather than flagging this gap at the time, Amedisys submitted its certification without mentioning the problem. Those missing emails could have contained substantive discussions relevant to the DOJ’s competition analysis. The company ultimately filed a corrected certification in August 2024, more than eight months later, but by then had been out of compliance for each day in between.

The DOJ emphasized that this was not a “minor paperwork glitch” but a material omission in a sworn filing. Under the HSR Act, the agency relies on complete and truthful responses to evaluate whether a merger may harm competition. Inaccurate certifications can delay investigations, hinder evidence gathering, and undermine the integrity of the review process.

Penalty and Remedial Steps

While the maximum penalty could have exceeded $50,000 per day of violation, the DOJ cited Amedisys’s eventual corrective action and cooperation as factors in reaching the $1.1 million figure. As part of the settlement, Amedisys must:

  • Provide antitrust compliance training to corporate and field leadership.
  • Implement internal safeguards to ensure accurate certifications in future merger filings.

Why It Matters—Especially for Healthcare Companies

This case is a reminder that procedural compliance is not optional, even if there’s no allegation of substantive market harm from the conduct itself. In healthcare, where mergers can reshape local service access, pricing, and staffing, regulators expect meticulous accuracy in HSR submissions. Missing or undisclosed records, even due to a tech failure, can result in penalties, reputational damage, and potentially jeopardize deal clearance.

For healthcare entities, the takeaway is clear:

  • Audit your data systems early in the HSR process.
  • Flag any potential gaps or irregularities in real time.
  • Treat certifications as binding legal statements, because they are.

A Window Into Broader Antitrust Trends

The Amedisys settlement lands in a regulatory climate where the DOJ and FTC are showing heightened interest in HSR procedural enforcement. Recent cases have targeted not just anticompetitive transactions but also failures in filing accuracy, document retention, and “gun-jumping” (implementing parts of a deal before clearance). What’s notable here is that this penalty came from a Republican-led DOJ, generally perceived as more merger-friendly. That underscores that truthfulness and completeness in HSR filings are bipartisan enforcement priorities, and that failing to meet those obligations can derail even strategically important deals.