Abingdon Health PLC (AIM:ABDX), the maker of rapid diagnostic tests, has said it is pleased with the High Court’s decision to reject a legal challenge to the UK government’s award of multimillion-pound contracts to the company for lateral flow tests.
The litigation, brought by the Good Law Project (GLP) against the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), included allegations of bias and conflict of interest, but all the claims were dismissed.
The judgement by Mr Justice Waksman, published on Friday, “confirms that Contract Award Decisions by the DHSC, for the development and manufacture of lateral flow test kits for COVID-19 antibodies by Abingdon Health, were lawful and complied with the principles of public law,” the company said in a statement.
“All grounds brought by the GLP in this case were dismissed and, of particular note to Abingdon Health PLC (AIM:ABDX), the claim of state aid was dismissed," it added.
The monies received by the company under the contracts totalled £10.3mln. A further final £1.5m cash payment from the DHSC, which was held under charge until the outcome of the judicial review, is now expected to be released, bringing the total amount paid to Abingdon by the DHSC to £11.8mln, the company said.
Commenting on the ruling in the statement, Chris Yates, chief executive officer of Abingdon Health, said: "We are, of course, pleased with this judgement, but extremely disappointed that Abingdon's reputation and good standing has been called into question by the GLP, and their unsubstantiated accusations were broadcast widely by them through various media outlets.
"At Abingdon Health we answered the government's call for leading UK life sciences companies to respond quickly with solutions to help during the height of the pandemic. We did the right thing. In the end we have been caught in a political cross-fire. We fully support transparency and accountability in the award of public contracts in general, and particularly during the COVID-19 period, but this case was misjudged.
“Despite all of the challenges that this has caused our business, I am very proud of the Abingdon team who have remained focused on serving our customers and building our business throughout."
The judgment stated that most of the tests bought by the DHSC from Abingdon were not used and became time expired.