Private health insurer Bupa is not entitled to damages from the State following the insurer’s successful challenge to the planned introduction in 2003 of a risk equalisation scheme (RES) into the health insurance market, the High Court has ruled.
Bupa was seeking hundreds of millions of euro in damages on grounds including it disposed of its Irish business at a diminished value in March 2007 as a result of the proposed scheme.
The claim arose after the Supreme Court in 2008 struck down the 2003 RES as invalid because it was adopted on foot of an incorrect interpretation of the phrase “community rating across the market for health insurance” in the Health Insurance Act 1994.
The Supreme Court returned the case to the High Court to decide if any damages were payable but also stressed it remained open to the legislature to introduce a different RES.
In a detailed judgment yesterday, Mr Justice John Cooke determined a range of issues under Irish and Euro- pean law relating to whether the State had a liability to Bupa for damages, before concluding no liability arose.
The State is still facing a legal costs bill estimated at more than €5 million.
