In Re the Excess Surplus Status of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota

OPINION

CRIPPEN, Judge.

After recovering $469 million as part of the 1998 settlement of Minnesota tobacco litigation, relator Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota found itself with a quantity of surplus prohibited by law for a nonprofit health service plan corporation. These are administrative proceedings in which ■ the respondent Commissioner of Commerce has explored the question of whether to approve the plan that Blue Cross developed to adjust its operations so that its surplus condition would be corrected.

Striking or altering more than 50 of the 200 findings of fact of an administrative…