LONDON: A federal panel on Friday centralized 49 lawsuits alleging that UnitedHealth Group’s change Healthcare payments The processing unit has been sued in Minnesota for failing to protect personal data in a cyberattack in February.

Federal judicial panel But Multidistrict litigation An order on Friday said Minnesota, where UnitedHealth is based and where several cases are already pending, is the most logical venue. Of the lawsuits, 19 were brought on behalf of individual consumers whose data was allegedly compromised, and 30 were filed by people whose data was allegedly compromised. health care providers Who say that they were unable to get paid for their services because Change’s system was shut down after the attack.

Change processes are almost halved Medical Claims In the United States. American Hospital Association The survey found that 94 percent of hospitals reported damage to their cash flow as a result of the attack.

The lawsuits accuse the company of negligence and seek damages to compensate providers for their losses and to reimburse consumers for the costs of credit monitoring and potential identity theft.

Change had sought to concentrate the cases in Tennessee, where it is headquartered. Some plaintiffs had proposed keeping the consumer cases in Tennessee and the provider cases in Minnesota, but the panel on Friday said the factual and legal issues would be largely the same for both types of cases.

The panel assigned the matter to: US District Judge Donovan Frank, a veteran judge who was appointed to the court in 1998.

Change and UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It is believed that this attack was carried out by terrorists. Ransomware Hacker UnitedHealth disclosed the intrusion on February 21 but did not say at the time how many people were affected.

Change said in a court filing in April that the lawsuits are “based on the false and unfounded theory that had a cyberattack occurred, Change’s security would have been deficient, and Plaintiffs would have suffered harm.”