PPE
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UK Crony Capitalism: Tuesday in Court
On Tuesday, our legal challenge to the PPE procurement scandal will be heard in the High Court. It’s the first day of a mammoth five day hearing. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: It never stops
Good Law Project has uncovered remarkable evidence that a Tory Minister brought a former Chair of the Tory Party, a man who now runs a lobbying firm, into the heart of Government to work on the massive multi-billion PPE procurement process. Having got his feet under the table that former Chair lobbied to win PPE… Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: Misleading Parliament
On 22 February, in the aftermath of the High Court finding that Matt Hancock had broken the law by failing to publish PPE contracts, Boris Johnson told Parliament this: “the contracts are there on the record for everybody to see” and “all the details are on the record” But what he told Parliament was just not true. A large… Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: The Judgment is in
Good Law Project is today able to reveal the names of four more companies awarded contracts through the VIP lane: Clandeboye Agencies, P14 Medical, Luxe Lifestyle and Meller Designs. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: Cummings’ pals
We are pleased to say that the Court has granted a Cost Capping Order in our judicial review of Government’s decision to hand a contract to Cummings’ pals at Hanbury without any competition. We will now be able to fight this case to its conclusion. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: Explosive emails
Explosive emails revealed in a hearing on our legal challenge over direct awards of PPE contracts show civil servants raising the alarm that they were “drowning in VIP requests” from political connections that do not have “the correct certification or pass due diligence”. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: Contracts handed to Conservatives
We already knew that Boris Johnson had misled Parliament when he insisted in February 2021 that all COVID contracts were now “on the record”. Now we’ve uncovered a new contract that makes further nonsense of that claim. Continue reading
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Crony Capitalism UK: Abingdon Health: An update
Last week, the High Court granted permission to advance our case against Government for its award of contracts to Abingdon Health for rapid antibody tests. The deal with Abingdon Health has been marred by controversy since the very beginning, with Government suppressing reports that raised the alarm around the effectiveness of the tests and ignoring their own legal… Continue reading
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Crony Capitalism UK: This is not the Britain we should be
We are pleased to announce that our judicial review with Runnymede of the Government’s practice of handing public sector jobs to its mates without open recruitment has been granted permission. We will have our day in Court. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: What have they got to hide?
This week’s Panorama gave us the extraordinary tale of a dog food supplier turned PPE broker bagging herself millions acting as a ‘bridge’ for a Hong Kong supplier. Details of the largest contract – worth £178m – came to light only after the BBC’s probing prompted the Government to publish. Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: Boris Johnson misled Parliament
3 days after the High Court ruled Government had acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts, Boris Johnson stood up in the House of Commons and reassured MPs and the public that all Covid-related contracts were “on the record”. However, the final Order handed down by the Judge today shows that what the Prime Minister… Continue reading
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UK Gangster Capitalism: They want to silence criticism
In the real world, the costs of defending libel proceedings are prohibitive for all except the wealthy. And the financial stress of defending a claim can be unbearable. The consequence is that the threat of defamation proceedings can be used to harass those who seek to speak truth to wealth and power. And they can… Continue reading
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Gangster Capitalism: Update from court
We are pleased to be able to tell you that the Court has granted a cost-capping order in our judicial review over the award of huge PPE contracts, without advertisement or competition, to Pestfix (a pest control company), Ayanda (an opaque private fund owned through a tax haven) and Clandeboye (a confectionery wholesaler). Continue reading
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Gangster Capitalism: UK Govt’s Costs
Tomorrow, the High Court will hear our application for a cost capping order in our judicial review of Government’s decision to award huge PPE contracts to questionable counterparties. Continue reading
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Gangster Capitalism: Good Law Says ‘We’ve won’
The High Court has ruled “The Secretary of State acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the Transparency Policy” and that “there is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the Secretary of State breached his legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices within 30 days of the award of contracts.” We… Continue reading
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UK: Public money for political advantage
Correspondence from Government shows it plans to claim a staggering £500k-600k in costs for a one day hearing of a judicial review challenge to a contract awarded by Dominic Cummings to his friends at Public First. The higher figure is more than the total value of the Public First contract of £564k. Continue reading
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UK Govt: They want us gone
Correspondence with Government has revealed they expect to spend a staggering £1 million defending our judicial review of their decisions to award contracts criticised by the NAO. This is a sum unprecedented in our lawyers’ experience of judicial review proceedings. We can’t but wonder whether they are trying to scare us off – using the… Continue reading
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UK: Why the Secrecy?
The UK now has the highest COVID-19 death rate of anywhere in the world. As we try and make sense of how we got our response so wretchedly wrong, just how significant will Government’s abandonment of transparency and proper process prove to be? Continue reading
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Crony Capitalism: This case will reshape society
Kate Bingham heads up Britain’s vaccine task force. She’s a venture capitalist with no public health experience, married to a Conservative minister. Dido Harding leads the Test and Trace system. She has no public health experience and is the wife of a Conservative MP. Mike Coupe, is head of COVID-19 testing, and has – you… Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: The NAO report
Today, the National Audit Office has released a damning report into Government procurement practices. It confirms what we have been saying for months. Government failed to manage conflicts of interest, dished out public money to deeply unsuitable companies, and has improperly shied away from proper scrutiny. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 