The Ombudsman for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan, Rustam Zhursunov, wrote about this on his Facebook page.

“Wirius” LLP addressed a complaint about the actions of “SK-Pharmacy” LLP. The single distributor for the purchase of medicines and medical products unilaterally reduced the volume of purchased reagents for coronavirus, and the customer refused to pay for part of the products already supplied.

In his message, the supplier says that he was declared the winner. Within the terms established by the contract, delivered the first batch of reagents - 315 552 kits. The customer has signed the acceptance certificates.

The company intended to deliver the second batch - the remaining 192,480 kits, however, on August 25, a letter was received from the Single Distributor about the refusal to accept the reagents and the refusal to reimburse “Wirius” LLP for a part of the already delivered products (due to the lack of demand by medical organizations). The single distributor reported that information about the lack of demand for reagents came from the departments of the Ministry of Health.

That is, “SK-Pharmacia” LLP not only does not accept the second part of the product, but also is not going to pay for the part of the already delivered product. And, this is despite the signed acts. According to the supplier, all products were purchased with borrowed funds and products can only be sold to a single distributor. The Health Minister, Alexei Tsoi, previously reported that the second wave of COVID-19 coronavirus incidence is expected in October, which means that there is still a need for reagents.

I also want to remind you that on September 1, President Tokayev K.K., in his message to the people of Kazakhstan, he noted that any illegal interference in entrepreneurial activity, obstruction of the work of businessmen should be perceived as a grave crime against the state.

The situation that has arisen raises a number of questions. Why did the Single Distributor purchase such a large volume of reagent kit without taking into account their demand by medical organizations? Who exactly will reimburse the costs of a company that has fulfilled its obligations under the contract in good faith? And are the leadership of the Ministry of Health and the top management of “SK-Pharmacia” ready to bear responsibility for explicit interference in the activities of a business entity?

To answer these questions, I officially turned to Alexey Vladimirovich with a request to take measures to restore the rights of Wirius LLP. I think the Minister of Health will sort out this misunderstanding.

P.S. In addition, I would like to speak about the existing imbalance of the rights and obligations of the supplier and the customer in the standard procurement contract for “SK-Pharmacy.” In addition to the possibility of unilateral withdrawal from the contract due to its inexpediency (as in the above case), the customer has the right not to pay the supplier for the delivered products for 90 days. The customer is not responsible for long-term non-signing of acts. In addition, the model contracts do not provide for alternative dispute resolution in arbitration.

As long as the customer is in such a privileged position, such facts will be repeated. With this problem, I have already turned to the authorized bodies and proposed to make appropriate amendments to the procurement rules,” wrote Rustam Zhursunov.