[blunte]

> somehow the international medical corporation can swoop in, buy the competitor who is threatening their margins

Perfectly normal and common in the US low-regulation economic system.

> and void the contract

Most likely the government officials with the ability to allow this cancelation were bribed, or rather lobbied, to allow it.

[AdrianB1]

It does not look like a regulation problem, but a contract breach: the buyer corporation should be held accountable to execute the contract as agreed, it bought the company with everything - assets and obligations.

[blunte]

The government often makes decisions about companies buying other companies.

If a company has a contract with the government, then the government should have (specified already in the contract, perhaps) the right to prevent the sale of the company (with some specific exceptions).

The primary problem here is that in theory, the government works for the people; but also in theory, the (publicly traded) corporations work for the shareholders.

But yes, even without regulation, the government should have made more effort to enforce the contract. Perhaps the key government people with the power to do so were influenced somehow... But even if the contract had been upheld, there's certainly no guarantee that the new big company would have put their best effort into meeting the original goals of the contract (especially if it was against their "best" (profit) interest).