Catholic Health Australia Limited and Ors

On 25 July 2024, Catholic Health Australia applied for revocation of authorisation A91400 (granted to St Vincent’s Health Australia Limited) and substitution of new authorisation AA1000677 on behalf of a group of health, community and aged care service providers.

Catholic Health Australia is seeking authorisation for the following:

• A group of Catholic hospital operators, known as the Revenue Negotiation Network (RNN) (and their related bodies corporate) to:
  • collectively bargain hospital and healthcare related funding arrangements with funding organisations and share data between RNN members
  • agree to collectively boycott certain private health insurers while collective negotiations are underway, where the private health insurers have agreed to participate in joint negotiation. This proposed boycott is to apply to the 5 largest private health insurers in Australia by national market share, which is currently Medibank, Bupa, NIB, HCF and HBF.
• A group of Catholic healthcare facilities known as the Joint Purchasing Network (JPN) (and their related bodies corporate) to:
  • collectively bargain with suppliers of goods or services, including sharing of data among JPN members
  • agree to collectively boycott certain suppliers during collective negotiations, where a supplier has agreed to participate in joint negotiation (collective boycott). This proposed boycott is to apply to suppliers with an annual Australian turnover of more than $5 million or an annual global turnover of more than $10 million.
• A group of Catholic health, aged care and community care service providers known as the Catholic Negotiating Alliance (CNA) (and their related bodies corporate) to exchange data, including revenue, activities, costs and efficiency data for benchmarking purposes.

Catholic Health Australia seeks authorisation for 10 years.

On 28 August 2024, the ACCC granted interim authorisation to enable Catholic Health Australia’s members to continue collective bargaining arrangements and for members of the JPN to continue to engage in a limited collective boycott of large suppliers in certain circumstances, being the same conduct as authorised in authorisation A91400, while the ACCC considers the substantive application. Catholic Health Australia did not seek, and the ACCC has not granted, interim authorisation for the proposed limited boycott for the RNN.

If you wish to make a submission in relation to this matter, please lodge it via this web form.

The ACCC will progress its assessment of the application in a timely manner. An indicative timetable is set out below for your information.