UnitedHealth Shareholder Falters in Suit to Force Proxy Proposal

UnitedHealth Group Inc. defeated a Canadian charitable corporation’s bid for an injunction forcing the health-care giant to allow shareholders to vote soon on whether it should publicize the health-care consequences of its corporate acquisitions.

The proposal “raises significant policy issues,” but it’s not clear at this stage of the case that it’s sufficiently focused on policy questions that transcend United’s ordinary business operations, Judge Rudolph Contreras said Wednesday, citing the standard used in a 1998 interpretative release from the Securities & Exchange Commission. The US District Court for the District of Columbia judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction requiring ...