MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – New York City is going to court to complain that companies claiming to be selling ventilators have kept more than $4 million and not delivered a single product.
NYC filed a lawsuit Oct. 8 in Florida federal court against Global Medical Supply Group, Nations Fast Tax & Accounting and Zhejiang Jinrong Trading Co., as well as four individuals.
The City says it agreed to pay $8.2 million to Global Medical to buy 130 ventilators in March, when COVID-19 cases were on the rise.
“Exploiting the COVID-19 crisis for their own gain, Defendants obtained millions of dollars from NYC through false statements about their ability to source the equipment in China, where the market for ventilators was in a state of frenzy due to overwhelming worldwide demand,” the lawsuit.
To date, the City has paid $4,283,905 but has not received the ventilators, it says.
“Despite their lack of immediate access to the requested ventilators, their complete inexperience and lack of licenses and related credentials required by law, Defendants represented to NYC that they could deliver 130 ventilators of a particular type—model VG70, manufactured by Beijing Aeonmed Co.—in a matter of days,” the suit says.
“In fact, they could not, and they did not.”