In a judicial review challenge brought by the Good Law Project to the Government's procurement of PPE in April, the court refused permission for a challenge based on the fact that the government should not be able to use the "urgency" exemption from tendering where it had known of the need for additional PPE for some two months, so had time to run a procurement process. 

The court also refused permission for a challenge based on the fact that the government had procured significantly more PPE than was required for its immediate needs. 

In all previous cases on this regulation (Regulation 32 (2) (c) PCR 2015) the court had emphasised that this "exemption" from the requirement for a tender process would be construed narrowly. 

The result is consistent with Procurement Policy Note 1/20 and the associated European guidance on which it was based. However, the case does extend the opportunities for contracting authorities to rely on "extreme urgency" as a ground for not running a full procurement process.