PPE firm with link to Mone ordered to repay £122m

Trial heard 25m surgical gowns supplied by 'VIP lane' firm were unusable

- David Conn

The government has won its legal claim against a company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone for the return of millions of pounds paid for personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic.

Mrs Justice Cockerill, who presided over the 12-day trial, ruled that PPE Medpro must return the full £122m it was paid by the Department of Health and Social Care for 25m sterile surgical gowns under a contract awarded in June 2020.

In her 87-page judgment, Cockerill concluded that the company had not complied with the legal and regulatory requirements to ensure that the gowns, manufactured in China, were certified and validated to be sterile.

In a statement, the company, which was ultimately owned by Mone's husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, claimed the couple had been made "scapegoats" for the then Conservative government's overspending on PPE during the pandemic.

The statement did not address whether and how the £122m will be repaid, for which Cockerill ordered a deadline of 15 October. The DHSC said that on 30 September, a day before the judgment was issued, an application was made to put PPE Medpro into administration. Its accounts, published a week before the judgment, show it had funds of less than £1m.

The DHSC sued PPE Medpro in December 2022, arguing that it had not complied with the relevant PPE laws to ensure the gowns were sterile.