Image: (APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)
The fronts between the Viennese company Lead Horizon, which was and continues to be commercially successful with PCR self-tests for the corona virus and the “Alles Gurgelt” test program, and the German CoviMedical GmbH, which has filed a lawsuit against Lead Horizon at the Vienna Commercial Court for reversal of a purchase agreement (amount in dispute: EUR 3.3 million) are hardened.
Test kits useless?
Wiener GmbH countered with a “counterattack” and demanded 1.42 million euros from CoviMedical. This amount – less a down payment made – is the outstanding purchase price for one million ordered Vienna test kits (price per unit: 2.42 euros), which CoviMedical wanted to roll out at 200 locations in Germany. The company, based in Dillenburg (Hesse), now describes the test kits as unusable because the online solution offered does not make a reliable authentication process possible due to a non-functioning web app and the requirements for CE certification of the product are not met.
court date in May
Lead Horizon already dismissed these allegations as “far-fetched” on Thursday. On May 8, the parties to the dispute will meet for the first time for a preparatory session at the Vienna Commercial Court, court spokeswoman Barbara Rath-Ruggenthaler announced on Friday. In an extensive preparatory brief, which the well-known Viennese law firm Cerha Hampel, which is representing Lead Horizon in the legal dispute, submitted to the commercial court last Monday, the dismissal of the lawsuit, which is subject to a fee, is requested and the payment of the full purchase price is insisted on.
CoviMedical “entirely ignores the clear and unambiguous provisions of the license and distribution agreement” and tries “to build up pressure on the defendant party in a clumsy manner,” according to the written statement. The German company uses “put-up pseudo-arguments” and claims a defect in the web app, “which, however, does not exist”.
Trouble identifying?
According to Lead Horizon, the web app specially developed for the German business partner and equipped with an AI function works perfectly and was offered and delivered properly. In contrast, CoviMedical claims that the beta version of the app, which was delivered in October 2022 and is equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), is not able to clearly identify test subjects.
Lead Horizon’s legal representative calls this “simply wrong” and explains in detail: “The web app records the person who is in front of the camera during the test process and constantly compares this with the person on the stored ID photo, whereby a certain (predetermined and modifiable) maximum deviation rate (or absence rate) is tolerated.
However, this is merely a check of attendance. Consequently, the WebApp checks that the test person is actually in front of the camera (“automatic presence check”), but not the specific activity of the test person.” The fact that the WebApp could do more was not contractually agreed. In addition, the beta Version of the app made available to CoviMedical as early as April 2022. This had been checked internally, and CoviMedical had confirmed that the web app worked well.
Special equipment charged
From Lead Horizon’s point of view, CoviMedical would like to reverse the deal because – contrary to what the German company expected – the legal situation in Germany with regard to PCR tests has not changed over the past year. Self-tests in one’s own living room were still not sufficient for the “Green Passport”, but still had to be carried out by trained staff or under the appropriate supervision of authorized persons.
Incidentally, the lawsuit by CoviMedical does not only relate to the costs for the ordered Vienna test kits. The value in dispute also includes so-called frustrated expenses, as Julian Bartholomä, a lawyer in Munich and one of the legal representatives of CoviMedical, explained: “Special devices were purchased to evaluate these tests in laboratories and to expand the test capacities. After the Lead Horizon test kits are unusable, not a single test could be evaluated. However, the equipment was linked to the test kits.” As a result, there was no longer any use for the special devices at CoviMedical, said Bartholomä. CoviMedical wants to be compensated for the damage caused by this.
“Incomprehensible”
For Lead Horizon it is “completely unclear whether and if so which machines should have been purchased here, which should be related to the contract in some way”, as explained in the brief of the law firm Cerha Hempel. It is “in no way comprehensible why these utensils should not be used independently in a laboratory of the plaintiff’s group, which can also be assumed, since it already had and has laboratories.”
Source: Nachrichten
