The New York State government rushed to place orders for anti-Epidemic medical equipment during last year’s epidemic, omitting the usual contract review process, resulting in one-third of the $1.1 billion purchase contract being recovered from the seller, which involved the Chinese supplier. The state recently hired a Hong Kong law firm to recover the money.
According to the New York Post 23 news, the New York State Department of health late last year with a “Gall Solicitors” (Gall Solicitors), a Hong Kong law firm signed a contract for a fee of $ 125,000, to engage its recovery of medical supplies contract default payments.
The one-year contract also provides for a waiver of the state comptroller’s “pre-audit” process. The reason is that the governor, who has had emergency powers since last year’s outbreak, can grant the other party an audit waiver. The governor’s emergency authority is now under pressure from state lawmakers to withdraw it because of his mishandling of the nursing Home matter.
The New York Times has reported that the Cuomo administration signed $1.1 billion in orders for respirators, masks and other anti-epidemic supplies with a variety of companies that would not have been qualified in normal times after last year’s outbreak; and that the contracts often used the usual irregularities of prepayment and other unfavorable ways of agreeing with the state. However, one-third of the contracts later resulted in New York State having to seek refunds because the sellers were late or could not deliver the goods.
These suppliers, in addition to Chinese manufacturer companies known for their poor quality, included unqualified U.S.-based companies such as car dealerships, military consulting firms, acquaintances of the state health department director, and even a sex toy manufacturer, all of which were not vetted suppliers during the epidemic emergency.
In his new book on fighting the epidemic, Cuomo defends himself by saying, “Because people’s lives were in danger, we had no choice.”
After the state issued a notice of recovery, most of the seller companies said “no money.” So, the state hired a large number of law firms to collect the money owed.
According to a response from the governor’s spokesman, the state has now recovered $235 million in payments.
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