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Friday, January 21, 2005

Law - Interesting public records dispute in Illinois, perhaps also relevant to Indiana

This story today in the Chicago Tribune caught my eye, particularly in light of Governor Daniels' pledge to put all state contracts on the internet. It is headlined "Mail-order pharmacy takes state fight to court" and begins:

The mail-order pharmacy that handles prescriptions for most [Illinois] state employees went to court Thursday to stop the state from releasing to the public the full terms of a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Its action came amid an investigation by the attorney general into whether Caremark Inc. sold drugs to patients that had been returned by other customers.

Caremark, one of the nation's largest pharmaceutical mail-order companies, has filed in Cook County Circuit Court for a temporary restraining order and an injunction to block state Comptroller Dan Hynes from releasing the full contract.

The Chicago Tribune and state Republican senators had asked for the Caremark contract and filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the comptroller. Hynes and his predecessors in the comptroller's office have routinely released copies of all information in state contracts upon request.

But Caremark's lawsuit maintains the firm wants only portions of the contract to be released, saying full disclosure would reveal pricing, proprietary information and critical trade secrets. * * *

"I think the contract should be public because it involves money that has paid for drugs for state employees," said James O'Shea, the Tribune's managing editor. "It should be open and available to the newspaper and its readers."

Aides to Hynes and Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, who is representing Hynes, also maintained the entire contract should be released.

"It appears that Caremark has not taken into consideration that it is doing business with a public entity," said state Sen. Peter Roskam of Wheaton, the GOP spokesman on the Senate Executive Committee. "Those arguments are fine in private contractual relationships. But the cloak of secrecy comes off when you're talking about public funds expended for a public purpose."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 21, 2005 09:19 PM
Posted to Indiana Law