Company Faces Lawsuit Over Illegal Political Payments - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports

(Story created: 6/1/05)

FIRST ON 5: As the result of the scandal involving former state Sen. John Ford, a big TennCare contractor faces a lawsuit from its shareholders.

United American Healthcare, formerly known as Omnicare, recently admitted paying the Senate chairman $100,000 a year in consulting fees... money that was kept secret from shareholders.

Now, in the lawsuit, the shareholders say "the investing public ... could not and did not understand ... the illegal political payments scheme, nor the risks to the company's operations and financial performance once this scheme would, inevitably, be discovered."

The company's stock took a nosedive after disclosure of the payments to Ford.