PPE Medpro, a company linked to Tory peer Michelle Mone, must repay the Government almost £122 million for breaching a contract to supply millions surgical gowns during the coronavirus pandemic, a High Court judge has ruled.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) sued PPE Medpro, after the company provided 25 million “faulty” gowns that were not sterile.
The company, a consortium led by Lady Mone’s husband, businessman Doug Barrowman, was awarded Government contracts by the former Conservative administration to supply PPE during the pandemic, after she recommended it to ministers.
Both denied wrongdoing and neither gave evidence at the trial in June, while lawyers for the DHSC said they were “not concerned with any profits made by anybody” and that the case was “simply about compliance”.
The Government is now recovering the cost of the £121 million contract, as well as the costs of transporting and storing the items, which amount to an additional £8,648,691.
Court documents from May reveal the DHSC said the gowns were delivered to the UK in 72 lots between August and October 2020, with £121,999,219.20 paid to PPE Medpro between July and August that year.
In December 2020 the gowns were rejected by DHSC and told the company it would need to repay the money. But the company did not repay this money and gowns remained in storage unable to be used.
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