CI Cigna Group

By Maria Armental 

Cigna Corp. on Tuesday called off the roughly $48 billion merger with Anthem Inc. and filed a lawsuit against its suitor, the second such health-insurer deal to fall apart.

Cigna, in the lawsuit, is seeking more than $13 billion in damages to its shareholders in addition to the $1.85 billion breakup fee.

Last week, a federal judge blocked the tie-up, saying the deal would create an unacceptable reduction in the number of companies able to serve large multistate employers that offer insurance to their workers.

Anthem has said it had unilaterally extended the deal's termination date to April 30, but Cigna countered that it had "made no determination with respect to Anthem's notice seeking to extend the termination date" and it was considering its options, including terminating the merger.

On Tuesday, Cigna filed its complaint in Delaware, accusing Anthem of "willful breaches" of the merger agreement.

Earlier this month, Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. terminated their merger agreement.

--Anna Wilde Mathews contributed to this article.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 14, 2017 15:41 ET (20:41 GMT)

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