Thanks for confirming and explaining. Nice of FD to do that but nevermind, it only broke the RP side of my game *rolleyes*
(Too many posts to quote them all.)
There's a new player minor faction that has been implemented in Phekda. The Phekda Society (from which you were supposed to get the permit) lost the control of the system to that new faction. Afaik the outcome was that you had no chance at all to get the permit at this time. That's why Frontier had to remove the permit.