As with any investment event, investors need to determine whether this is temporary in its impact, or permanent. If the event is temporary it may represent an opportunity, but if it results in permanent change or damage then investors need to realign their thinking.Steven Siewart
Bell says that the potential result from a class action is difficult to quantify. The most the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has awarded in damages for non-financial loss associated with a privacy breach was $20,000 per individual. This incident was related toMedibank says that 480,000 customers had health claims data stolen that contained potentially embarrassing information. A similar damages award to this group of 480,000 would be larger than Medibank’s market cap.
The class action would have to prove that Medibank’s cybersecurity was incompetent or negligent, which could be challenging for the plaintiff. Dive also questions whether the government would be happy to allow Australia’s largest health insurance provider with 29 per cent market share, to be financially crippled.