§ 2999-aa. Antitrust provisions, state oversight. 1. In order to
promote improved quality and efficiency of, and access to, health care
services and to promote improved clinical outcomes to the residents of
New York, it shall be the policy of the state to encourage, where
appropriate, cooperative, collaborative and integrative arrangements
including but not limited to, mergers and acquisitions among health care
providers or among others who might otherwise be competitors, under the
active supervision of the commissioner. To the extent such arrangements,
or the planning and negotiations that precede them, might be
anti-competitive within the meaning and intent of the state and federal
antitrust laws, the intent of the state is to supplant competition with
such arrangements under the active supervision and related
administrative actions of the commissioner as necessary to accomplish
the purposes of this article, and to provide state action immunity under
the state and federal antitrust laws with respect to activities
undertaken by health care providers and others pursuant to this article,
where the benefits of such active supervision, arrangements and actions
of the commissioner outweigh any disadvantages likely to result from a
reduction of competition. The commissioner shall not approve an
arrangement for which state action immunity is sought under this article
without first consulting with, and receiving a recommendation from, the
public health and health planning council. No arrangement under this
article shall be approved after December thirty-first, two thousand
twenty-four.

2. The commissioner or his or her duly authorized representative may
engage in appropriate state supervision necessary to promote state
action immunity under the state and federal antitrust laws.