HealthEngine will pay a $2.9 million penalty for doctoring patient reviews of GP clinics and passing on patient information to health insurance brokers.

The Federal Court of Australia approved the penalty on Thursday, bringing an apparent end to the two-year saga.

The accusations against HealthEngine began in 2018 with claims the booking business shared 135,000 patients’ personal details with nine different insurance companies which then used the information to contact them as part of their telemarketing campaigns.

The court found HealthEngine asked patients whether they wanted to receive a call about private health insurance, but in a way that implied Health Engine was doing the calling, not that it was sharing the patients’ details with third parties.