SAN DIEGO, May 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of purchasers or acquirers of UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) (“UnitedHealth” or the “Company”) common stock between March 14, 2022 and February 27, 2024, inclusive (the “Class Period”), charging the Company and certain current and former senior executive officers with violations of the federal securities laws. UnitedHealth investors have until July 15 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the class action lawsuit.
If you purchased UnitedHealth common stock between March 14, 2022 and February 27, 2024, and suffered substantial losses, and you wish to obtain additional information or serve as lead plaintiff in this lawsuit, you may submit your information and contact us here: https://dicellolevitt.com/securities/unitedhealth-group/.
You can also contact DiCello Levitt partner Brian O’Mara by calling (888) 287-9005 or at investors@dicellolevitt.com.
No Case Has Been Filed and No Class Has Been Certified. Until a case is filed and a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice.
Case Allegations
UnitedHealth is a health care and well-being company comprised of two distinct and complementary businesses: Optum and UnitedHealthcare. UnitedHealthcare provides health insurance to individuals, employers, and small businesses and is the largest insurance provider in the United States. Optum provides healthcare-related services, including software solutions, payment services, and data analytics.
The UnitedHealth class action lawsuit alleges that on January 6, 2021, UnitedHealth announced an agreement to acquire Change Healthcare (“Change”) and integrate it into its existing Optum business. On February 24, 2022, and in response to the January 6 announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a lawsuit challenging UnitedHealth’s acquisition of Change. The DOJ alleged that the proposed acquisition would violate antitrust laws because the integration of Change and Optum would give UnitedHealth unparalleled access to information regarding nearly every health insurer, as well as health data on every single American. UnitedHealth assured the DOJ, investors, and customers that Optum would “maintain robust firewall processes” to prevent customer sensitive information (“CSI”) from being shared between Optum and UnitedHealthcare.
In May 2022, prior to the start of the antitrust trial, UnitedHealth created a new firewall policy for Optum and UnitedHealthcare which addressed the sharing of CSI following the acquisition. This firewall policy was issued to specifically address the Change acquisition and designed to keep Optum and UnitedHealthcare data separate post-merger.
Ultimately, the acquisition was permitted with the court repeatedly crediting UnitedHealth’s firewall policy and commitment to preventing the sharing of data between UnitedHealthcare and Optum as the rationale for allowing the deal to proceed.
The UnitedHealth class action lawsuit alleges that, throughout the Class Period, UnitedHealth repeatedly assured investors that it had taken steps to avoid anti-competitive behavior, including by setting up “robust firewall processes” to prevent CSI from being shared between UnitedHealthcare and Optum after the merger. UnitedHealth explicitly stated that Optum “invests extraordinary time, money, and resources into safeguarding [CSI] and keeping it walled off from UnitedHealthcare” and that “UnitedHealth Group’s existing firewalls and data-security policies prohibit employees from improperly sharing external-customer CSI.” As a result of Defendants’ alleged misrepresentations, UnitedHealth stock traded at artificially inflated prices throughout the Class Period.
On February 27, 2024, the Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) reported that the DOJ had re-opened its antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth. In the WSJ article, the public learned for the first time that the DOJ was investigating the relationships between the Company’s various segments, including Optum. As a result of this disclosure, the price of UnitedHealth stock declined by $27 per share, leading to a loss of nearly $25 billion in shareholder value.
The lawsuit further alleges that UnitedHealth was aware of the DOJ investigation since at least October 2023. Yet, rather than disclosing this material investigation to investors or the public, UnitedHealth insiders instead sold more than $120 million worth of their UnitedHealth shares. In the four months between learning about the DOJ investigation and the investigation becoming public, UnitedHealth’s Chairman Stephen Hemsley sold over $102 million of his personally held UnitedHealth shares and Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, sold over $15 million of his personally held UnitedHealth shares.
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