On its face, the Department of Health and Social Care v PPE Medpro Limited was not a case about Michelle Mone, or VIP fast lanes, or the politics and profiteering of the pandemic years.
Rather, as the DHSC’s barrister made clear on the first morning of the first day of hearings, it was about 25 million surgical gowns sold to the NHS for £122m. Were they, or were they not, appropriately certified as sterile, and thus fit for use?
The answer, unequivocally according to Lady Justice Cockerill’s judgment, was no, leaving PPE Medpro in breach of contract, and liable to repay just short of £122m.
This case was always going to be about more than dusty contract law however. By targeting the company founded and controlled by Doug Barrowman, the husband of Baroness Mone, the DHSC was taking on the couple who encapsulated the COVID PPE scandal.
Her public profile as the media-friendly lingerie entrepreneur ennobled by David Cameron, blithely sharing snaps from the Lady M yacht while the country endured lockdown, and her husband’s repeated hollow denials, made them the faces of that failure.
PPE Medpro won more than £200m of contracts only after Baroness Mone used her political contacts, including Michael Gove, to introduce the firm to the government’s VIP ‘fast lane’ and short-circuit normal procurement rules.
She did so on the same day in May 2020 that her husband Doug Barrowman incorporated the company, and then lobbied hard over the next six months to see the deal completed. The judge described her as PPE Medpro’s “big gun”, deployed when civil servants were perceived to be holding up the deal.
When challenged the pair then lied for more than two years about their links to the company, only admitting their role after dogged reporting by The Guardian revealed not just her role in lobbying on its behalf, but the extraction of more than £65m in profit.
When challenged in a BBC interview and a self-funded documentary, Mone said that while she regretted not admitting her role, lying to journalists was not a crime.
The couple’s response to the ruling was in keeping with their approach throughout. The day before the judgment PPE Medpro filed to enter administration, with accounts showing assets of just £666,000, ensuring that any discussion about repayment will be with the administrator, not Mr Barrowman.
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Baroness Mone meanwhile took to social media to claim the couple had been “scapegoated and vilified” for wider failings, and shared correspondence in which they offered to settle the case for £23m.
After the judgment was delivered the baroness called it “an Establishment win”, while Mr Barrowman, whose company offered no factual evidence in court and was not called as a witness, called it a “travesty of justice”.
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Labour ministers, led by the chancellor, praised the court’s independence even as they celebrated a judgment which, if nothing else, may remind voters of the chaos of the Boris Johnson years.
Getting the money back, the central point of the legal exercise, will be harder than stirring bad memories.
The DHSC has appointed lawyers to try and help it “recover every penny” but it is unclear how that can be achieved given Medpro’s administration.
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It could choose to pursue Mr Barrowman, who boasted of huge wealth earned in fintech and lived a lifestyle to match, but it is unclear how, and whether he still has the means.
The National Crime Agency has frozen £75m of the couple’s assets as part of its ongoing investigation, and the couple are reported to have sold homes and other assets in recent years.
Asked if they might repay the profits earned, or at least the £23m offered in settlement, Mr Barrowan’s spokesman told Sky News: “The DHSC would have to negotiate with the administrators, but the backers of PPE Medpro have always tried to negotiate with DHSC and they’re happy to engage.”
