April 4 (Reuters) - UnitedHealth Group's ( UNH ) Change

Healthcare on Wednesday asked a U.S. court panel to designate

Nashville, Tennessee, as the place to consolidate at least 24

class actions accusing the payment processor of failing to

protect personal data from February's cyber hack.

Change is based in Nashville and the company said in its

filing that the federal court there was well prepared to oversee

a large, consolidated legal proceeding.

Evidence and key witnesses will be based in Tennessee,

Change told the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation,

which weighs forum questions about lawsuits focused on the same

set of facts.

In its filing, Change said the panel should put the lawsuits

before U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, who is already

assigned to some of the cases filed in that court in recent

weeks. Richardson, who previously worked at law firm Bass, Berry

& Sims, was appointed to the trial bench in 2018.

"Centralization of these actions in a single district is

imperative to prevent duplicative discovery and inconsistent

pretrial rulings, and to conserve the resources of the parties

and the courts," Change's attorneys at law firm Hogan Lovells

told the judicial panel.

UnitedHealth ( UNH ) did not immediately respond to a request for

comment. The Minnesota-based company has said it was focused on

restoring Changes' operations.

The attack was carried out by the ransomware hacker group

BlackCat. UnitedHealth ( UNH ) disclosed the intrusion on Feb. 21 but

did not indicate then how many people were affected.

The proposal for consolidation in Nashville, part of the

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee,

mirrored a request from a group of plaintiffs' lawyers involved

in the litigation. Last month, they asked the multidistrict

panel to select that court.

Thirteen of the lawsuits filed so far were lodged by

consumers claiming a heightened risk for identity-theft from the

cyberattack. Eleven other cases were filed by healthcare

providers alleging there was a delay in insurance claim

payments. Change is named as a defendant in all of them.

Change's filing on Wednesday said the lawsuits are "based on

the incorrect and unfounded theory that, because a cyberattack

occurred, Change's security must have been deficient and

plaintiffs must have been harmed."

Read more:

Class action lawsuits pile up over UnitedHealth ( UNH ) data breach

UnitedHealth ( UNH ) could take months to fully recover from hack

Healthcare providers hit by frozen payments in ransomware

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