Developer corona breath tests against the State in court

The company Breathomix, which developed a corona breath test, is demanding money from the State on Friday morning in a preliminary injunction in The Hague. The breath tests were provided by the company, but the GGD stopped using them due to disappointing results.

The Ministry of Health’s agreement with Breathomix was terminated. The State does not want to pay the money that the company would still receive under the agreement. According to the company itself, the breath test works properly.

In its own words, the course of events has cost Breathomix “enormous costs”. In total, the company is demanding 24.7 million euros from the State in proceedings on the merits. Because such a lawsuit can take a long time and the start-up says it will not get through that time without extra money, it already wants to be paid more than 3 million euros. This will be discussed in court on Friday.

Het Financieele Dagblad wrote earlier this week that Breathomix had manipulated investigations into the breath test to its own advantage. The report in which this conclusion was drawn is in the hands of the newspaper. Breathomix denies the findings. Both the company and the ministry declined to share the report this week. It is not yet clear whether the lawsuit will also deal with this subject on Friday.

The ministry also confirmed after reporting by Nieuwsuur that Minister Ernst Kuipers was involved in his previous job as a hospital administrator with organizations that collaborated with Breathomix. However, the minister sees no reason to transfer the file concerning the company to another minister. According to his spokesperson, the collaboration had nothing to do with the case that is currently ongoing.