Source: Belgian television mocks Battistelli for all he has gotten away with

Summary: Another glance at the secret contract with Wellkom, which helps bury concerns about depressed (and at times suicidal) EPO staff, reveals that not even a tendering process was followed

WE previously wrote about a rather dodgy-looking company. The closer one looks, the more dodgy it seems because unlike other cases (e.g. BlueCoat), here there is also an element of secrecy. Regarding BlueCoat, told us one reader, "according to some sources, Internet traffic of all sites of the EPO is going through The Hague (you have the few IP addresses with which the proxy is connected, I am quite sure). So this may be the natural reason why the Blue Coat appliance/s(?) need (only) be located there."

We are beginning to get a more accurate picture of how things really work behind the scenes in the Kingdom of Eponia and the more we find out, the worse it is getting. The press is bribed, fake 'studies' are set up, so Bluecoat is just the edge of an iceberg. We are still trying hard to get hold of details about the EPO's Microsoft contract/s as it appears to be a subject that the EPO is extremely twitchy about (enough to send legal threats to bloggers). Yesterday the EPO promoted tools that typically require applicants or lawyers to be Microsoft customers, albeit the EPO did not mention it. It never does. The same turns out to be the case with the UPC, which the EPO's mouthpiece, IAM, is still pushing for (this 'article' is more like a sort of puff piece/advertisement), having received money from the EPO's PR firm. To quote the biased chief editor of this EPO mouthpiece: "It will also leave them in a good position to make the most of what could happen next in Europe, should the UK vote to stay in the EU and the UPC get off the ground."

"Based on information we have been receiving, practitioners/health advisors are fanatically concerned about the health of EPO staff, having seen things that horrified them."In that last sentence, IAM promotes the fiction that if the UK stays in the EU, that alone will make UPC a reality (never mind other obstacles including Spain). Previous examples of UPC lobbying from the EPO's mouthpiece included shaming of European politicians (or nations) who didn't do enough to promote the UPC. When will the EPO start paying firms for UPC 'studies', in order to bolster the lobbying efforts of Battistelli? IAM was "supported' by the EPO to set up a pro-UPC event in the US earlier this year.

We have decided to take a closer look at contracts or at least tenders relating to the EPO, in an effort to find anything pertaining to Wellkom and the likes of it (propaganda/whitewash disguised as 'survey'/'study'). We couldn't find any tender notice in the last year concerning the provision of a staff study. Yet the EPO demands competitive bids for all sorts of services including customer surveys. If the Wellkom job had been formally tendered, then there would be a trace of it under TED. Strange that they should use an EU site, if they are so independent. The tenders can also be found on the EPO's Web site, but here's TED:

Click for original-sized screenshot

Nothing there about the Wellkom job. Transparency not welcome?

EPO staff should be asking serious questions about this firm that claims to be assessing the state of staff health while actually hijacking staff voices so as to help Battistelli's propaganda and make dead staff turn in their graves. Based on information we have been receiving, practitioners/health advisors are fanatically concerned about the health of EPO staff, having seen things that horrified them. Wellkom's job is basically to discredit such observations and create an alternate (fake) reality. ⬆