In a motion filed with the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Highmark said UPMC “failed to follow well-established protocols for attempting to gain access to the subject documents, instead engineering ‘back-door’ access to preclude Highmark from protecting its confidential and trade secret documents,” according to the report.
The sealed Highmark documents were inadvertently submitted with public materials as part of the hearing for Highmark’s lawsuit against West Penn Allegheny Health System when merger talks between the payor and system had broken down last fall. UPMC requested copies of the documents during the trial, including those that were supposed to be under seal, according to the report.
UPMC attorneys have said they alerted the court when they discovered the error. But in December, a UPMC attorney refused a judge’s request to return the sealed documents, arguing the health system was not legally required to do so.
More Articles on UPMC and Highmark:
Highmark to Buy West Penn Debt, Salvages Merger Proposal
Highmark to Finalize Purchase of St. Vincent Health in Early 2013
Highmark and West Penn Nab UPMC OB/GYN Group
