Abstract
Suspicious emergency purchases during the Covid-19 crisis have raised public concern about an unprecedented increase in corruption. Emergency legislation often allows the purchase of masks, ventilators, vaccines and other medical equipment under non-transparent and uncompetitive procedures.
International organisations such as Transparency International have issued numerous warnings about the connection of emergency purchases and corruption. One of the biggest scandals has been the result of an audit in the United Kingdom - out of $10.5 billion of purchases, most were not procured in a competitive procedure and one-third were allocated to companies with an explicit link to political parties (NAO 2020).