A Canadian religious group, Mission Fund, is suing UnitedHealth Group because the company did not include the group’s proposal for reporting on acquisition consequences in its 2026 proxy materials, according to a March 20 filing in the federal district court in Washington, D.C.
The proposal called for UnitedHealth’s board to publish a report addressing the effects of the company’s acquisitions over the past decade. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, composed of more than 300 faith- and values-based investors, issued a shareholder resolution in December advocating for this report. The March complaint requested that UnitedHealth be barred from excluding the resolution in its proxy materials.
Proxy materials allow shareholders to understand topics up for vote at a company’s annual meeting. Previously, the Securities and Exchange Commission would informally weigh in on what merits exclusion from proxy materials, but the agency stopped doing so in November.
When reached for comment, UnitedHealth referred Becker’s to its Jan. 30 letter to the SEC, which informed the agency of its intent to withhold the proposal, characterizing it as addressing “ordinary business.” SEC staff sent a letter to UnitedHealth in February, saying they would “not object” to the exclusion.
“UnitedHealth’s attempt to keep this proposal out of public view combines bad faith and bad behavior,” Meg Jones-Monteiro, ICCR senior director for health equity and evaluation, said in a March 20 news release. “There are good reasons to be concerned that the acquisition strategies UnitedHealth has employed have led to less competition across the sector and a harsher and more expensive healthcare sector for patients and their families. Demanding transparency about these impacts is a reasonable and prudent request.”
A July 16 report by the Center for Health & Democracy said, as of the third quarter of 2024, UnitedHealth contained nearly 2,700 subsidiaries. However, UnitedHealth opted to roll back its subsidiary disclosures in its 2025 SEC filings and only flagged 10.
Mission Fund is under the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, which led the proposal. The congregation is a member of ICCR.
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