The New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau has rejected Maimonides Medical Center’s bid for administrative approval of its proposed merger with NYC Health + Hospitals, dealing a major blow to a transaction that was supposed to close in just over a week.

The Attorney General’s office has directed that Maimonides must instead seek court approval for the proposed asset transfer under Section 511 of the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law — a rigorous judicial process the hospital has not yet begun and that is expected to take many months. No closing can occur unless a Brooklyn court reviews and approves the application.

The ruling makes it impossible for Maimonides and H+H to meet their widely publicized April 1, 2026, closing deadline.

That timeline had been publicly affirmed as recently as March 2, when Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of H+H, told the City Council Committee on Hospitals that “the transaction is anticipated to close by April 1, 2026.” Katz acknowledged at the time that “not all the paperwork is yet done” with the Attorney General’s office, but gave no indication that approval might be withheld.

Less than three weeks later, it was.

The court process now required will include formal notice to the Attorney General, a public hearing before a New York Supreme Court justice, and an opportunity for any interested parties to participate and raise objections — a far cry from the streamlined administrative sign-off Maimonides had been pursuing.

A Multi-Billion-Dollar Question

At the heart of the opposition is the nature of the deal itself: in substance, the transfer of a multi-billion-dollar hospital and its assets to the City of New York, raising pointed legal questions about the proper handling of not-for-profit assets and the impact on care for the surrounding community.

“The Attorney General’s office has now confirmed what we have been saying for months: this transaction cannot simply be rubber-stamped and must instead be reviewed by the courts,” said Martin Bienstock, an attorney representing community institutions and individuals concerned about the merger’s effect on healthcare quality. “The transfer of a multi-billion-dollar hospital to the City of New York demands full judicial scrutiny.”

Opponents have pointed to H+H’s track record as cause for alarm. The public hospital system’s facilities have consistently ranked among the lowest-quality in both the city and the state, and critics say absorbing a well-regarded community institution like Maimonides into that system could erode care for the patients who depend on it.

Legal Battles Multiply

The Attorney General’s decision adds to a thickening tangle of legal challenges.

In Albany, community members and institutions have filed suit seeking to require Public Health Council approval of the transaction under state health law. Petitioners in that case have asked for a preliminary injunction blocking the closing, and a court has granted their request for a hearing later this month.

“The Not-for-Profit Corporation Law exists to ensure that the public interest is protected before a charitable institution’s assets are handed over,” said Akiva Shapiro of Gibson Dunn, co-counsel for the petitioners. “The law requires both judicial and Public Health Council scrutiny of a transfer of this magnitude, and the communities that depend on Maimonides for their medical care deserve nothing less.”

Separately, a group of Maimonides trustees has filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn challenging the validity of the board’s approval of the deal, seeking to have the vote and any resulting transaction nullified. A preliminary injunction hearing in that case is scheduled for mid-April.

With contested proceedings now mounting on multiple fronts, what was presented to the public and the City Council as an imminent and all-but-certain closing now faces a gauntlet of judicial scrutiny that Maimonides and H+H had clearly hoped to avoid.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)