Sutter $575 Million Antitrust Settlement Gets Preliminary OK (1)

A $575 million settlement to end litigation brought by California and a joint union-grocery employer health plan accusing Sutter Health of anticompetitive behavior was preliminarily approved Tuesday by a state judge.

The closely watched case, had it gone to trial, could have resulted in a billion-dollar jury verdict against Sutter Health that analysts said could set a pattern for other regions with dominant industry players.

Judge Anne-Christine Massullo of the California Superior Court in San Francisco approved the proposed settlement after initially rejecting it last fall because she said the process for selecting a settlement fund monitor was skewed ...