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Comment on Will UK taxpayers get their £122m back from PPE Medpro?

dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

To my understanding they were promptly told the delivery was not fit for purpose and asked the money be paid back. That money was not paid back and now they claim the company doesn’t have the money.

What would you call that if not fraud? They knowingly spent money that should have been returned. Sure we could agree that the fraud isn’t the fact the equipment wasn’t fit for purpose but then not returning the money is either fraud or theft, both of which can have custodial sentences. I’ve seen people arrested for stealing sandwiches.

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HumanPenguin@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That assumes they had no costs in producing or acquiring the not fit for purpose goods. And that they knew the goods were unfit.

A fraud case would be more about proving they knew the goods would not be fit for purpose. Failing to pay back money when if they did not know. Is just breach of contract.

Proving there knowledge before the event. And the cost of providing the goods. Or the companies wealth to payback the costs of operation while obtaining and shipping the goods. Are all extremely complex to do.

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FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Well, I hadn’t heard that, but suppose it’s true:

Legally you have to be able to distinguish what they did from a company whose customer told them that some merchandise was defective, and then the company simply carried on operating as normal while looking into it. I think it would be unusual to hold that money aside unless the company thought that the complaint was likely accurate, and certainly it’s not legally required, because the company will have bills to pay.

So if it’s not unreasonable for a company to carry on spending money while there’s a question over potentially having to repay something, we can’t reasonably take the position that, because this company carried on spending money, that must be fraudulent.

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- dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  The gowns were rejected on inspection in September 2020 at the NHS warehousing facilities in Daventry, Northamptonshire, because their labels were invalid, and also signalled that they had not been certified as sterile, a life-protecting requirement. Cockerill ordered that the £122m be repaid by 15 October.
  
  Literally in the article of this thread dude. You seemingly want to shill for a shady company that shook down the government through their own connections, but reading the damn article is a stretch too far.
  
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  - FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    That quote does not say that the government immediately asked for the money to be paid back, so let’s cool it with the accusations, eh?
    
    You didn’t actually reply to what I said. What evidence of fraud do you think exists? All you said was “they knowingly spent money that should have been returned”, but they didn’t have a legal finding that the money should be returned.
    
    And also consider that if you jump to accusations of shilling as soon as there’s a slight difference of understanding plus any attempt to get you to see something from someone else’s perspective, you’ll live a very blinkered life.
    
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