UnitedHealth Group shareholders are renewing pressure on the company in an amended complaint, filed Aug. 7 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.
An initial complaint from July 2024 focused on concerns over the “firewall” between UnitedHealthcare and Optum. UnitedHealth established the policy in 2022 amid a Justice Department challenge of the company’s impending Change Healthcare acquisition, limiting how customer sensitive information could be shared between subsidiaries. The acquisition went through thanks to the firewall protocol, the original shareholder complaint said.
But the Justice Department eventually revived its antitrust investigation in 2024. The initial complaint alleged breaches of fiduciary duties.
The revised complaint filed by UnitedHealth shareholders resurfaced the February 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware attack, which compromised the data of 190 million individuals. The plaintiffs alleged unaddressed, but known, cybersecurity risks leading up to the attack. For example, a witness said the company transitioned from CrowdStrike to Microsoft Defender, which the witness believed would be less secure.
The lawsuit names several current and past UnitedHealth executives, including Andrew Witty and Stephen Hemsley, as defendants. The plaintiffs allege that defendants secured more than $237 million in insider stock sales through concealed misconduct.
“On their watch, the company built its industry-leading earnings on a foundation of systemic wrongdoing and illegality,” the complaint said. “It defrauded the federal Medicare program, denied medically necessary care to its most vulnerable members, deceived a federal court, violated patient privacy laws, unlawfully suppressed competition and manipulated earnings.”
The lawsuit also said Mr. Hemsley backed the decision to cut an audit program after an internal review revealed at least $200 million in unsupported diagnosis codes submitted to the federal government.
Becker’s contacted UnitedHealth and will update this story if more information becomes available.
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