Pension giant Calpers
wants a federal judge to unseal reams of documents and executive
depositions on UnitedHealth’s backdating scandal that the insurer wants
to keep under wraps.
The
scandal unseated former UnitedHealth CEO Bill McGuire, the company’s
general counsel and a board member more than a year and a half ago. It
also led to a settlement last December in which McGuire agreed to
forfeit $420 million in stock option gains and retirement pay to settle
shareholder and federal-government claims connected to stock-options
back-dating. Together with $200 million that McGuire had already agreed
to surrender, it was one of the largest executive pay givebacks ever.
The issue, though, rages on thanks to a shareholder lawsuit led by
Calpers seeking damages for millions of dollars in stock-market losses
it says resulted from the scandal. In making their case, lawyers for
the pension fund deposed top UnitedHealth executives and collected
oodles of internal memos detailing the decision-making process around
the backdating of options. Now the attorneys say they want the sealed
documents released so that other shareholders can decide whether they
want to be part of the class action.
UnitedHealth’s attorneys argue that the request is “overly broad”
and would threaten the privacy of thousands of UnitedHealth employees
by possibly releasing their financial and other personal data,
according to a story in the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.
Earlier this month, we learned from the Strib that McGuire’s lawyers
argued the Calpers suit should be dropped because he was trained as a
doctor, rather than a lawyer or accountant, and didn’t know that backdating was wrong.
Document Update:
Calpers got its wish and the unredacted documents are out for all to
see as part of the plaintiffs’ opposition to UnitedHealth’s motion for
summary judgment of the case. Click on the PDF icon at the right for
the details.