Tag: Law

  • The PPE Medpro Saga in the UK

    This report in the Byline Times summarises the PPE Medpro case. 

    The UK government had sued the company for £122m in 2022. But in the latest development: 

    “PPE Medro’s unaudited accounts, published last month for the year ended 31 March 2022, show just over £4m in current assets and just over £47,000 in cash. It reported no employees for the accounting period and none in 2021.”

    As the report points out: 

    “Byline Times was the first publication to reveal in September 2020 that PPE Medpro had won hundreds of millions in Government COVID contracts, just 44 days after being incorporated.” 

    During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company had “won two contracts worth more than £200 million to supply personal protective equipment (PPE)” including one contract “for £122 million worth of sterilised gowns to the NHS.” The government has since claimed that the supplied gowns “did not comply with the specification in the contract”. 

    The concern is that the company “won contracts through the so-called ‘VIP lane’ of suppliers” with the Conservative peer Michelle Mone being “accused of lobbying Michael Gove and Lord Agnew at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to secure business for PPE Medpro.” Mone “has denied having any relationship with the company” and “PPE Medpro claims it delivered the contract to its terms and supplied equipment “fully in accordance” with the contracts.” 

    It is important to note that: 

    “The Byline Times has previously been the subject of legal threats from PPE Medpro.”

    Read the full report here.

  • Amnesty Releases Report on Taliban's War Crimes in Panjshir

    As this article reports, Amnesty International has published a new report that claims “[t]he Taliban have committed the war crime of collective punishment against civilians in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province.” 

    The area has a number of “members of the security forces of the former Afghan government” who “fled to Panjshir with equipment and arms, and joined the National Resistance Front (NRF).” 

    This has led to a retributive crackdown in the area by the Taliban resulting in “torture and unlawful killings,” “[m]ass arbitrary arrests and detention intended to intimidate local population,” and detainees being “subjected to extrajudicial executions.” 

    As the article states:

    “While many of the acts taken by Taliban forces individually constitute war crimes, the entirety of those acts – plus the additional arbitrary detentions and restrictions on the civilian population – also constitute the war crime of collective punishment.”

    Read the Amnesty International article covering the report here. Read the full original report here.

  • Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Starbucks in New York For Collecting Biometric Data and Sharing It with Amazon

    According to this press release put out by Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P) on May 4, 2023: 

    “Today, a Starbucks customer, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P), Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC, and Pollock Cohen LLP filed a proposed class action lawsuit claiming that Starbucks illegally failed to notify customers that Starbucks’ stores using Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology in New York City collect biometric data on customers. The class action also claims that Starbucks illegally shared those customers’ biometric data with Amazon. Two Starbucks stores in Manhattan use the “Just Walk Out” technology to track each customer’s movements and purchases in the store’s lounge and marketplace. They also take palm images of customers who enter those areas of the stores with a palm signature. The case was filed under New York City’s 2021 biometric notice law, which requires businesses to post signs warning customers whenever their biometric information is being collected or shared and prohibits sharing customers’ biometric information for anything of value.”

    In addition to the parties listed above, the class action suit was filed on behalf of “a proposed class of tens of thousands of Starbucks customers.” 

    Starbucks did try to take some steps belatedly, but apparently, they do not cover all legal grounds: 

    “On March 13, 2023, Starbucks allegedly took the additional step of posting signs that state that it only collects biometric data from customers who opt into the optional palm scanner program that Starbucks operates at two of its stores. However, as the lawsuit alleges, Starbucks collects and shares biometric data on all customers who enter the gated area of the store that includes the lounge and marketplace, even those customers who refuse to use the palm scanner, namely information on the shape and size of each customer’s body.” 

    Read the full press release here.