Reference: 20230540
15 January 2024
Chris Johnston
[FYI request #24922 email]
Dear Chris
Thank you for your request made under the Official Information Act, received on 28
November 2023. You requested:
The NZ Government provided some form of indemnity to the suppliers of the
COVID-19 vaccine.
(R1) Can you please provide the value of any liability that has been estimated
and/or placed on the government accounts should such indemnity need to be
exercised/used.
For example, the NZ Government may need to undertake one or more of the
following non exhaustive list of scenarios: (a) fund claims made to ACC that
caused it to need to be recapitalised, (b) directly defend or compensate injury
victims, or (c) where the suppliers require the NZ Government to defend them in
court for claims of negligence, fraud or malfeasance.
(R2) Please provide any Record (eg document/email) that discusses the
probability of such a liability clause causing a cost to the NZ Government, and/or
any financial estimate of the size of such costs. We can discuss limiting the time
period if there are too many documents, but if this discussion is to entered into
then you will need to provide a count and/or a list of the document titles from a
reasonably undertaken keyword search of your SharePoint or similar system, and
provide the keywords used.
(R3) Please provide any advice to the incoming government since the 2023
election night on options and policy recommendations around such a liability.
This can include formal documents and notes of Treasury officials in the
Ministerial briefings up to the point that this OIA is fulfilled.
I have decided under section 15A of the Official Information Act to extend the time limit
for deciding on your request by an additional 10 working days. The new due date for
responding to your request is 1 February 2024.
The extension is required because of the consultations needed to make a decision on
your request.
1 The Terrace
PO Box 3724
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
tel. +64-4-472-2733
https://treasury.govt.nz
This extension will also apply to the time limit for transferring your request, should this
become relevant.
Notwithstanding this extension, I undertake to decide on your request as soon as
reasonably practicable.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review this decision.
Yours sincerely
Jess Hewat
Manager, Health and ACC
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