The Secret State
The UK state machinery acts in your best interests by keeping information from you.
Our double X agent XXXXXX XXXXXX has unearthed another piece of information on the award of the Oxford Astra Zeneca (AZ) Advance Purchasing Agreement, or APA.
Dated August 2020, it is a Contract Award Notice, which is attached.
It provides more info on the procedure. These are the paras which caught our eyes:
“Justification for selected award procedure:
Extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable for the contracting authority and in accordance with the strict conditions stated in the Directive
Explanation
The award of the contract to AZ is strictly necessary for unforeseeable reasons of extreme urgency; i.e. the urgent requirement to find a viable vaccine to end the Covid-19 pandemic (Regulation 32(2)(c)). In addition competition was absent from any competed procurement because AZ has exclusive rights to the vaccine being developed by Oxford University (Reg 32(2)(b)(iii)).”
and
“Contract end date is being withheld on grounds that release would be contrary to public interest (Reg 50(…
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