PPE Medpro has been ordered to repay £122m to the UK government for the botched supply of PPE during the Covid pandemic.
The company secured a fast-track government PPE contract that led to it being slapped with a winding up petition by HMRC.
The company has also come under investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) regarding whether it acted fraudulently in supplying faulty PPE.
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What Happened With PPE Medpro?
PPE Medpro Ltd was incorporated on 12 May 2020, just days after Tory peer Michelle Mone contacted procurement minister Theodore Agnew with an offer to source personal protective equipment for the NHS from Hong Kong.
Mone took the step, having apparently first consulted Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.
Within six weeks, the company was handed two separate contracts for PPE worth a total of more than £200 million.
As part of the government’s ‘VIP lane’ fast-track scheme to supply the NHS and care sector with enough personal protective equipment at the height of the pandemic, PPE Medpro did not have to go through a competitive tender for either contract.
Problems arose when a batch of 25 million surgical gowns supplied by PPE Medpro was rejected for not meeting clinical standards.
Mrs Justice Cockerill has now ruled that PPE Medpro must repay £122m, which it was paid by the Department of Health and Social Care, as it did not comply with legal and regulatory requirements to ensure the gowns it supplied were fit for purpose.
The money must be repaid by 15th October 2025.
Can PPE Medpro Afford to Repay?
One day before the judgment was announced, on 30th September 2025, PPE Medpro lodged an application to go into administration.
On Companies House, its accounts suggest it has assets of less than £1m, raising questions about whether it will pay.
The Department of Health and Social Care will need to discuss the issue with the administrators. One possibility may be to use a compensation order, which is designed to hold company directors responsible for “unfit conduct”.
Government Procurement Is Still Under Scrutiny
The ‘VIP lane’ scheme has been widely criticised for cronyism and for being open to abuses by those with links to government.
For her part, Baroness Mone has always denied having any formal role in PPE Medpro Ltd, even though the Isle of Man home she shares with her husband, the financier Douglas Barrowman, was raided by the NCA as part of its investigations into the company. Barrowman has not denied having financial ties to the firm.
PPE Medpro’s apparent link to a prominent figure in the Tory party guarantees the story a high profile. But the truth is, under-resourced bodies like HMRC and the Insolvency Service are struggling to cope with a wave of potential fraud and maladministration cases following the pandemic.
While much attention – and resource – has gone into the much-discussed abuse of business support and recovery schemes, other areas like PPE procurement remain woefully under investigated.
And perhaps purposefully so. After handing out billions in public cash to companies with little or no scrutiny and due process – not to mention the evidence of links to political allies and associates – thorough independent investigations into business practices around pandemic PPE supply could prove very embarrassing for the government indeed.
