§ 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.

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.