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UNITED HEALTHCARE OF GEORGIA, INC. et al. v. GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY HEALTH.

666 S.E.2d 472, 8 FCDR 2733 (July 28, 2008) Private health insurer that contracted with Department of Community Health (DCH) to administer state health insurance plan brought action to prevent DCH from disclosing, in response to a request under the Open Records Act, correspondence and form contracts submitted by insurer in connection with the contract, and requesters intervened and counterclaimed for disclosure of the documents, as well as of provider contracts and fee schedules prepared by insurer and never submitted to DCH. The Superior Court, Fulton County, Lane, J., awarded summary judgment to the requesters. Insurer appealed. On reconsideration, the Court of Appeals, Bernes, J., held that: (1) documents not submitted to DCH were public records; (2) documents submitted to DCH were "required by law to be submitted to a government agency," as necessary to qualify for the trade secrets exemption; (3) exemption could apply to the documents not submitted to DCH; and (4) insurer did not contractually waive trade secret exemption for all materials other than proprietary software. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.

Full post as published by The Trade Secrets Vault on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).