Tunstall under fire in Swedish court on appeal of Adda procurement exclusion

July 2, 2021 | by

Tunstall appeals Swedish procurement exclusion. Tunstall has gone to a Swedish administrative court to fight the exclusion by Adda Inköpscentral from the Swedish framework agreements for the municipal procurement of telehealth and security alarms,  In April, Adda, the strategic supply consultant and agreement manager, announced that Tunstall would be excluded from two 2018-2019 framework procurement agreements as well as the new four-year framework agreement on performance issues, including a major problem with alarm responses last October [TTA 22 May]. 

What is being debated in court in the action between Tunstall and Adda is the following, according to SVT Nyheter (disclosure: translated from Swedish to English via Google Translate):

  • Certain municipalities received compensation from Tunstall, which the company has refused to disclose nor what the agreements look like, other than they were based on a template. Municipalities also refused to send Adda copies of the agreements, citing confidentiality. In Sweden, municipalities can negotiate agreements on their own with suppliers, but if they choose to work under the framework agreement, the municipalities create their own detailed contracts using the framework as a basis. Adda apparently received copies of agreements that included ‘silence’ (presumably non-disclosure or confidentiality) clauses. According to Adda, this violates both the framework agreement and ‘publicity legislation’.
  • According to SVT quoting Adda’s filing, “Tunstall “consistently deliberately withheld information from Adda, probably in order to avoid exclusion in the Procurement” and now “deliberately tries to mislead not only Adda, but also the administrative court.” This also refers to data files that contained information about when alarms stopped working in over 100 municipalities in October 2020 due to, apparently, a bad software update. The translation in the article subhead refers to “lying and misleading the court”.
  • Municipalities had delays in implementation going back to 2018. Ystad demanded a fine of half a million for its delays, where it turne out that response times had been calculated in different ways, After Tunstall promised improvement, Ystad dropped the demand. Götene signed an agreement on security alarms for nursing homes in spring 2020 but only a limited number were operative by December well into this year. This municipality remains unhappy according to SVT, contradicting Tunstall’s official statement to the publication, which closes the SVT main article.

There is no indication in the article when a decision will be made by the administrative court.

There is a second SVT article on the disagreement on the handling of an alarm call in Lidingö. The Tunstall call center did not call for an ambulance, the city was delayed for two hours, and the person died. Neither Tunstall nor Adda were interviewed for the 24 June SVT articles. Hat tip to two of our Readers who wish to remain anonymous. One also referred, with a certain gimlety turn, to two 2018 interviews with CEO Gordon Sutherland on the subject of building trust both as an organization and with their customers. PwC (January 2018) and The Trusted Executive (June 2018).

Tunstall excluded from Sweden’s framework agreements for municipal alarm and technology procurement

May 22, 2021 | by

Health tech in the Nordics rarely makes the news, except for Kry and Nokia. Tunstall has made news, but of the troublesome sort. Adda Inköpscentral, the strategic supply consultant which manages the Swedish framework agreement for procurement of telehealth alarms, is excluding Tunstall as a supplier in two ongoing procurements for security alarms and security-creating technology. The framework agreements are Security Alarms and Alarm Reception 2019 and a corresponding agreement, Security-creating Technology 2018. Adda has reached out to competitive companies for future contracts under these two agreements, which are winding up.

Worse, Adda is excluding Tunstall as a supplier for the new security alarms four-year framework agreement. The decisions are based on their investigation, concluding that Tunstall “violated the previous framework agreement in several respects”. “Our decision to exclude Tunstall from future framework agreements is based on our assessment that the company cannot live up to our high demands as a framework agreement supplier.” (Google translation)  Adda’s notice on Tunstall exclusion

The reasons why date back to October and multiple incidents in alarm responses. Adda’s investigation, which wrapped in late April, cited failures such as long response times in alarm response. SVT Nyheter used more dramatic language. “Thousands of old and sick were affected when the alarms stopped working in over a hundred municipalities. In Luleå, a woman who sounded the alarm died in vain (sic) several times.” Apparently, a software update went bad, disabling the alarms, but SVT‘s reporting has covered other incidents.

According to SVT, Adda currently manages procurement agreements for 200 municipalities. In Sweden, municipalities are free to negotiate their own contracts. If they choose to work under the framework, the municipalities create their own detailed contracts using the framework as a basis. Contracts signed under the old agreement remain in effect. 

Tunstall has commented that “they are disappointed with the message, do not agree with the criticism and are now analyzing the decision to decide whether to appeal it.” Additionally, they commented to SVT that “they had handed over an action plan and hoped to be able to sign the agreement in the near future.” Tunstall’s Swedish HQ is in Malmö and their security center in Örebro. Hat tip to an anonymous Reader 

Editor’s note: Editor Donna invites Tunstall to reach out to me for comments or updates.