180719

The Royal Navy, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, has awarded a 5 year contract to Markes International for the provision of Tenax-TA Sorbent Tubes. It is considered that this contract can be awarded using the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice pursuant to regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for technical reasons. While the Tenax-ta tubes can be sourced from multiple manufacturers the tubes themselves are unique to each suppliers’ specifications and will not be compatible with machines designed for specific suppliers test tubes. MOD only requires tubes and immediately associated items, which are required to be compatible with its existing machines. Switching suppliers would require recertification of the laboratories testing processes for the samples as well as the purchase of new equipment. Using incompatible equipment would result in anomalies with unacceptable risk to the safety of MOD personnel.