Healthcare IT firm Orion Health is embroiled in two separate court cases involving a health data network provider it is invested in.
Orion is New Zealand’s largest private software company, has more than 700 staff, a turnover of about $100 million a year and has also indicated plans to list on the New Zealand stock exchange.
It has a 52.4% stake in Healthlink, which was founded in the early 1990s as a public-private partnership to provide the network that allows patient data to be transferred electronically between GPs and other health providers.
Healthlink was set up as a joint venture between Orion and Nexus Holdings, which is owned by Tom Bowden, who has been the chief executive of Healthlink since its inception.
But the relationship between Orion and Nexus turned sour, resulting in two disagreements that have wound up in the High Court.
One of the disputes relates to royalty payments Healthlink makes to Orion for technology it provides the company.
NBR ONLINE understands Healthlink was paying Orion $30,000 a month in royalties but this was eventually re-assessed at about a quarter of that, due to Healthlink not using Orion’s technology as much as it had previously.
Healthlink is now seeking compensation, claiming that Orion delayed having the royalty rate re-assessed, resulting in it effectively being overcharged for a couple of years.
This case was heard in the High Court at Auckland this week in front of Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue but it was in chambers, meaning media were excluded.
Orion and Nexus are also involved in a separate shareholder dispute that is due to be heard in the High Court in July.
It was originally scheduled for November but was delayed after illness struck two of Orion’s lawyers.
Orion Health chief executive and majority owner Ian McCrae said the company was “sorting out some internal matters” and he couldn’t comment while the case was before the court.
Mr Bowden also declined to comment on the dispute.
Niko Kloeten
Tue, 19 Mar 2013
Tue, 19 Mar 2013
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Two-headed court dispute after Orion Health, partner fall out
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