The consortium behind PPE Medpro has announced its readiness to enter talks with the company’s administrators and the UK government, following a High Court ruling ordering the firm to repay £121.9 million for breaching a pandemic-era contract with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
In a statement shared with Business Matters, a spokesperson for the consortium said the partners “are prepared to enter into a dialogue with the administrators of the company to discuss a possible settlement with the government.”
The announcement comes after nearly five years of legal wrangling over PPE Medpro’s 2020 contract to supply 25 million surgical gowns, worth £122 million. The company has maintained throughout that it fulfilled the agreement in full and spent £4.3 million defending its position in court.
During the proceedings, PPE Medpro made several no-fault settlement offers — including a proposal to remake the entire order or pay a £23 million cash equivalent — all of which were rejected by the DHSC. By contrast, the department quietly settled a separate £135 million claim with another supplier, Primerdesign Ltd, for £5 million before trial.
Critics have accused the government of inconsistency and political bias in its handling of the Medpro dispute. The gowns at the centre of the case were deemed non-sterile under a technical clause but were reportedly unsuitable for frontline NHS use because they were “single-bagged” — an omission the DHSC allegedly failed to address in similar contracts with other suppliers.
“This case has become a distraction from the real issue: the government’s inability to manage PPE procurement, usage, or resale,” one industry observer said.
PPE Medpro has argued that the gowns could have been resold for non-sterile use, potentially recovering up to £85 million on the international market. An independent valuation in 2020 supported this estimate, but the government made no effort to repurpose or resell the stock. Instead, it wrote off nearly £10 billion of unused PPE.
On 2 October, Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that PPE Medpro breached its contract by failing to provide timely proof that the gowns had undergone a validated sterilisation process. Although the company later obtained the required radiation dose mapping documentation from its suppliers in China, it was submitted too late for consideration.
The ruling was condemned by PPE Medpro’s associated figures, including Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman, who described it as a “travesty of justice” and accused the government of using them as scapegoats for broader pandemic procurement failures.
Now in administration, PPE Medpro’s next steps will depend on whether the government agrees to discussions on a potential settlement. The case, however, has already come to symbolise the lingering controversies over how billions of pounds were spent — and lost — during the UK’s Covid-19 response.
