> Given the confidential nature of the information of the fingerprint cards, Focused was required to perform all of the work in New York and it could only use employees that had passed a criminal background check. It was also prohibited from subcontracting any of the work to any other entity.
(Breaching your contract is only illegal (as opposed to a tort) when the other party is the government)
In this case, the contract involved a vendor bidding with/through NYS Industries for the Disabled, which is a "preferred source" contractor that is supposed to employ disabled people to perform work. Typically this is light manufacturing work, although operating scanners for a purpose like this is also common.
As a preferred source contractor, they have preference over any other competitor -- if you bid on the contract and offered to perform the services for $1, the preferred source vendor would win.
The issue is that this is a serious fraud, not just a case of violating some contract term. I'm curious as to why the principles aren't facing criminal prosecution.
> "To advance special social and economic goals, certain providers have preferred source status under the law. The acquisition of commodities and/or services from preferred sources is exempted from statutory competitive procurement requirements. All state agencies, political subdivisions and public benefit corporations (which includes most public authorities), are required to purchase approved products and services from preferred sources in accordance with the procedures and requirements described in the Preferred Source Guidelines.
This is why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It seems to me that the people who should face criminal prosecution are the people who came up with this nonsense "preferred source" scheme.
I didn't downvote you, but I would if I could. I both disagree with your view and think that you haven't really argued your point very well.
Blind people aren't born on a level playing field.
I believe that a society should take care of people who are unfortunate, and this method seems like a reasonable way to allow market mechanisms to improve their life.
I'm assuming that you disagree that this is a role society should take. However, the consensus of of most societies in history is that blind people should be taken care of in some way.
I think it's reasonable that you should be expected to make a better argument to overturn that view than you have.
The contractual terms probably reflected statutory or regulatory requirements...in my experience that's pretty much the case with all government contracts. It's a two way street, those statutes and regulations place obligations on the awarding party as well.
> > Given the confidential nature of the information of the fingerprint cards, Focused was required to perform all of the work in New York and it could only use employees that had passed a criminal background check. It was also prohibited from subcontracting any of the work to any other entity.
> (Breaching your contract is only illegal (as opposed to a tort) when the other party is the government)
In Australia, breach of a contract is a breach of contract law and is not a tort. Presumably America is different though.
(Breaching your contract is only illegal (as opposed to a tort) when the other party is the government)