A Medical Device Daily

Quovadx (Greenwood Village, Colorado) reported that in federal court in the District of Colorado, Senior District Judge Richard Matsch gave final approval to the settlement of the class action lawsuit, Special Situations Fund III, L.P. et al. v. Quovadx, Inc., giving final resolution of the three legacy shareholder lawsuits that arose from the company's 2004 restatement of historical financial results. This lawsuit was filed in May 2004. The agreement was first reported early this year (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 4, 2007).

Class members and their counsel received $7.8 million in exchange for release with prejudice of all claims asserted against it and individual defendants arising out of the acquisition of Quovadx stock in connection with Quovadx's December 2003 exchange offer for all of the outstanding shares of Rogue Wave Software.

Quovadx is a provider of software and services for software system development, extension and integration. Its Rogue Wave division provides reusable software components and services for enterprise-class application development.

In other legalities: Health Grades (Golden, Colorado) reported that a panel of the American Arbitration Association (New York) ruled in its favor in its arbitration with Hewitt Associates (Lincolnshire, Illinois) in a dispute concerning a 2005 development and services agreement between the companies.

HealthGrades filed for arbitration against Hewitt in March 2006, claiming, among other things, that Hewitt breached the agreement.

The arbitration panel ruled that the agreement was a valid and enforceable and that Hewitt had breached it, awarding HealthGrades $3.6 million, plus another $467 per day until the award is paid or reduced to judgment.

HealthGrades said that the panel's award was based upon the three-year annual guarantee under the agreement, which was for $3 million annually for 2007, 2008 and 2009. The panel reduced this amount by an estimate of expected costs of generating revenues and then performed a present value calculation of the net revenue amount using a discount rate of 15%. The panel added prejudgment interest of about $192,000.

In addition, HealthGrades said that the panel concluded that HealthGrades was the "prevailing party" of the agreement and so is entitled to receive "reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.

Health Grades is a healthcare ratings organization, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. Hewitt is a human resources consulting firm.