A company linked to Conservative peer Michelle Mone is facing a huge legal battle after the High Court heard it should repay £121 million for delivering non-sterile PPE during the pandemic.
Lawyers for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) argue that the 25 million surgical gowns supplied by PPE Medpro didn’t meet vital safety standards — and taxpayers should get their money back.
The firm strongly denies any wrongdoing, calling the case a politically charged attack and a case of “buyer’s remorse”.
🧪 ‘Faulty’ gowns not sterile, court told
Opening the trial, the DHSC’s legal team said the 25 million gowns failed the basic requirement: they weren’t sterile.
Paul Stanley KC said:
“This case is simply about whether 25 million surgical gowns provided by PPE Medpro were faulty.”
According to court documents, 140 gowns were later tested — and 103 failed the sterility test.
The gowns were delivered in 72 batches between August and October 2020. But in December that year, the government rejected them, claiming the supplier failed to follow a validated sterilisation process and supplied invalid CE markings.
Despite being paid almost £122 million, the gowns remain in storage, unused — and the government wants the cash back, plus an additional £8.6 million for transport and storage costs.
👗 Mone’s link to the deal
Although Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman aren’t named in the contract, the court heard Mone was the one who recommended PPE Medpro to ministers in 2020.
Stanley told the court that Mone remained “active throughout” negotiations, describing Barrowman as having “years of experience” in procurement.
Still, the government insists the case isn’t about Mone herself.
“The department does not allege anything improper happened, and we are not concerned with any profits made by anybody,” Stanley said.
🛡️ PPE Medpro hits back: ‘We’re the fall guys’
In written arguments, PPE Medpro’s lawyer Charles Samek KC hit back — accusing the government of unfairly targeting the company due to the public profile of those associated with it.
He claimed the gowns may have been contaminated after delivery and that the government was now simply trying to ditch a deal it regretted.
“In reality, [this is] an archetypal case of buyer’s remorse,” he said, blaming a “catalogue of failures” by the DHSC during a pandemic-fuelled PPE buying spree that left the department with £8 billion of unused stock.
Samek added that Mone had “zero relevance to the contractual issues” and criticised her mention in government submissions as “delicious irony”.
⏳ What happens next?
Neither Baroness Mone nor Doug Barrowman are expected to give evidence, and Mone didn’t attend court for the first day of the five-week trial.
A spokesperson for PPE Medpro said the firm “categorically denies breaching its obligations” and will “robustly defend” itself.
The trial continues, with a final ruling due later in writing from Mrs Justice Cockerill.
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