A private health company's laboratory gave at least 43,000 people potentially false negative Covid-19 test results, and the government is considering legal action against them.
An independent quality audit of work at the Immensa site was commissioned by the UK Health Security Agency.
The UKHSA refused to give details of the audit and who carried it out, citing legal issues.
The agency said it was declining to release the information on public interest grounds because of legal advice and litigation privilege.
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Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project said that they see us pushing back hard.
They see us pushing back hard.
The response to the Good Law Project does not confirm that UKHSA will formally litigate under the contract at this time, but allows UKHSA time to investigate in full before determining its final position under this contract, as well as to follow the legal advice that was given to it.
The Good Law Project said it will challenge the freedom of information decision because it believes the audit was done months ago.
Immensa in Wolverhampton suspended testing operations in October after an investigation into reports of people receiving negative results after they had previously tested positive for a drug.
About 400,000 samples were processed through the lab, the vast majority of which were negative, but an estimated 43,000 people may have been given incorrect negative results, mostly in south-west England.
The laboratory in Wolverhampton continued to process results for international travellers who bought tests through its sister company, Dante Labs, and an employee from the joint company was supporting test and trace in a technical role.
The Dante Labs website shows that it still has travel-type tests for sale, even though they are out of stock. The website said it had temporarily suspended the sales of the tests.
Immensa was formed in May 2020 and is owned by the chief executive of Dante Labs.
A full investigation into the Immensa laboratory is ongoing and we will provide an update in due course.
The director of the Good Law Project welcomed any legal action the government might take against Immensa. Immensa's failures are the result of the government's inexplicable decision to give over a hundred million dollars to an unaccredited testing outfit. For the communities that were betrayed, government has very real questions to answer.
Immensa and Dante Labs were contacted.
