A federal judge in Washington, juggling challenges to twomultibillion-dollar merger deals in the health insurance industry,said Thursday he would keep only one of the cases and begin thetrial in the other ahead of the U.S. Justice Department’s preferred February start date.

U.S. District Judge John Bates gave no indication of which casehe would preside over, and he did not specify exactly when hewanted a trial to begin. Bates did, however, flag hisrepresentation of Blue Cross Blue Shield two decades ago, notingthat it could create the appearance of a conflict of interest inthe Justice Department’s caseagainst Anthem Inc.’s proposed $54 billion acquisition of CignaCorp.

Aetna Inc., under deadline pressure in its proposed $37 billionacquisition of Humana Inc., faces a year-end deadline to wrap upthe deal. Anthem, citing an April 30 deadline to close its tie-up with Cigna, also wants resolution bythe end of 2016.

Federal antitrust enforcers urged Bates this week to ignorethose deadlines, saying the companies set those dates and “canalter them with the stroke of pen.” For both matters, the JusticeDepartment proposed a trial-ready date of Feb. 17.

Anthem, represented by White & Case partner ChristopherCurran, proposed an October trial. Bates questioned whether thattimeline was reasonable given the complexity of the deals. TheJustice Department has described the mergers as “unprecedented intheir scale and in their scope.”

“That’s a very fast schedule looking at other cases and,certainly, looking at cases of this magnitude,” Bates said.

On the timing of a trial, Bates said only that he would set a“faster schedule” than what the government has proposed. “Whatexactly that schedule will be I need to think through a littlebit,” he said.

Curran acknowledged at Thursday’s hearing there is“contentiousness” between Anthem and Cigna.

When the Justice Department sued to block the two healthinsurance deals on July 21, alleging that they would lead toincreased premiums and lower quality health care, Anthem vowed tovigorously fight for its acquisition of Cigna. Cigna took a lessenthusiastic tone, saying instead that the company was “evaluatingits options consistent with its obligations under theagreement.”

Without a resolution at the end of the year, Curran said, Anthemwould not be able to secure the approval of state regulators beforethe April 30 deadline, allowing Cigna to back out and receive a$1.85 billion breakup fee.

“First of all, I think that would kill the deal,” Curran said,referring to the Justice Department’s push to begin the trial in2017.

Bates at one point appeared uncomfortable with the notion that acompany could use a deadline to speed up a court’s antitrustproceeding. “Do you think that’s something the parties of the dealcan do to the courts?” he asked.

Curran assured the judge that Anthem was “not posturing” orplaying games. Repeating what he said in court papers leading up toThursday’s hearing, Curran said Anthem worked in good faith withthe Justice Department during its investigation and blamed thegovernment for putting the deal in the position of dying on thevine.

“If we could extend the date, we would,” Curran said. “But wecan’t. We’re stuck.”

On the question of whether Bates should preside over the twoantitrust lawsuits, the judge said he did not believe it would berealistic—or “fair to the parties and the public—for him to handleboth cases. Bates said he would send one case back to bereassigned.

“That’s my determination,” he said. “I can’t do both.”