A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s decision to block a planned merger between insurers Anthem and Cigna.
The U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ decision will likely end the planned $54 billion merger between the two insurers. A lower court initially blocked the merger in February over anti-trust fears.
Cigna also had signaled it wants to pull out of the merger.
The U.S. Department of Justice under the Obama administration sued to block the merger, and said it could harm competition by shrinking the number of major insurers in the country. The Justice Department also sued to block a now defunct merger between Humana and Aetna.
Anthem doesn’t seem to be hurting from the likely collapse of a deal. The insurer reported that its first-quarter revenue climbed by 10 percent to $22 billion mainly due to growth in Medicaid and Medicare plans and due to price increases.
