Firm linked to Michelle Mone must pay back £122m to governmentpublished at 14:06 BST 1 October
Cachella Smith
Reporting from the High Court
Just after 10:30 at the High Court in London, a judge ruled that a company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone breached a contract with the government to supply sterile surgical gowns during the pandemic.
Mrs Justice Cockerill said PPE Medpro must now pay back the total cost of the gowns - £122m - after finding that the firm hadn't sufficiently demonstrated that the gowns had undergone the correct sterilisation process.
The deadline for repayment is 15 October - and Health Secretary Wes Streeting says the government wants "every penny".
The judgment, however, also pointed to flaws in the Department of Health’s actions – PPE Medpro had argued during the trial that DHSC’s rejection of the gowns was not timely and Mrs Justice Cockerill agreed it didn't happen within a reasonable time frame.
She also ruled against the government being able to claim the £8m it sought for the storage costs of the gowns.
Mone's husband Doug Barrowman - who led the consortium that PPE Medpro was part of - criticised the judgment, saying documentation is now available that proves the gowns were properly sterilised.
Mone, meanwhile, described the ruling as "nothing less than an establishment win for the government in a case that was too big to lose".
Neither the peer nor her husband appeared in court today for the judgment, which was delivered to the High Court in around 20 minutes. We will be closing our live coverage shortly, but you can read further details in our news story.
In 2023, Michelle Mone told the BBC she may benefit from the £60m profit from the £122m PPE deal in question







