In the fall of 2021, the region canceled an advertised procurement and instead directly procured a framework agreement for staffing services in the health care to a value of SEK 800 million. The framework agreement applied from January to June 2022, but was then extended for the rest of the year.
The Swedish Competition Authority disagrees with the region that there was “extreme urgency”, it was too far into the pandemic. In addition, the region has done the same thing several times, writes the agency.
“There is an outer limit to what can be considered to constitute an unforeseen event and thus be the basis for extraordinary urgency in the sense of the procurement legislation,” says the Swedish Competition Authority’s director general Rikard Jermsten according to a press release.