LONDON — In a major legal showdown that has continued to ripple through Westminster and beyond, the High Court has ruled that PPE Medpro Limited, a company closely linked to Tory peer Baroness Michelle Mone and led by her husband Doug Barrowman, must repay the UK government more than £122 million over a controversial Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) contract.
What the Court Found
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) sued PPE Medpro after the company supplied 25 million surgical gowns during the pandemic that were later judged not to meet the contract’s strict sterilisation standards.
In October 2025, Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that the gowns did not comply with the terms agreed, and therefore Medpro had breached the contract.
The government had sought repayment of not just the £121.9 million paid for the gowns, but also over £8 million in related storage and transport costs.
Lawyers for the DHSC argued that 99.9999% of the gowns needed to be sterile under the contract and that sample tests revealed a large portion failed to meet this criterion. Despite this, the gowns remained unused and are still in storage, unable to be deployed in the NHS.
Medpro’s Defence
Medpro’s legal team mounted a robust defence, labelling the Government’s case as driven by “buyer’s remorse” and attributing contamination issues to poor storage after delivery rather than inadequate production.
The defence also highlighted that the contract terms were entered into “with eyes wide open,” claiming the government approved the gowns without a valid CE mark requirement.
Political Backdrop and Fallout
The case resurrects intense scrutiny over the so-called “VIP lane” used to allocate Covid contracts, a fast-track route through which well-connected companies received lucrative deals without conventional competitive tendering.
Medpro’s path to a £122 million contract has become emblematic of questions about government procurement choices at the height of the pandemic.
Baroness Mone has publicly rejected claims that the trial was about the gowns or money, calling it a scapegoating exercise and suggesting that both she and Barrowman were unfairly targeted to deflect criticism from broader procurement failings.
Aftermath and Next Steps
The court’s judgment requires repayment by a deadline that has since passed, and Medpro was placed into administration just before the ruling, clouding prospects for actual recovery of funds. The government, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting, has pledged to pursue every avenue to retrieve public money for the NHS.
With insolvency procedures now underway and ongoing debate over accountability and oversight, this landmark case is shaping not just legal precedent but political discourse around emergency government spending and oversight in times of crisis.
The Bottom Line:
Medpro must repay £122 million for supplying gowns the court found to be in breach of contract, yet whether the government can actually recover that money remains tangled up in insolvency and legal appeals.