MICHELLE Mone and her husband are among a group of individuals reportedly being sued in an attempt to recover the millions owed over dodgy Covid medical kit.
The UK Government was awarded £122 million plus interest from the former Tory peer’s husband Doug Barrowman’s company PPE Medpro after a court ruled it had breached a contract to provide sterile surgical gowns during the pandemic.
The joint liquidators from the firm Interpath Advisory have launched a case against six individuals and five companies linked with the firm, after PPE Medpro was put into liquidation, the BBC reports.
The National has approached Mone’s office for comment.
PPE Medpro, set up during the coronavirus pandemic, exploited the Tories’ “VIP lane” on the recommendation of Mone and won its first contract to supply masks.
But it was sued by the UK Government by the end of 2022 over claims the medical gowns provided did not comply with healthcare standards.
Last year, the High Court found in the Government’s favour, saying that PPE Medpro had failed to prove its gowns had undergone the required sterilisation process.
While ministers were victorious, it was unclear how the company would meet its obligations, having less than £1m on its balance sheet before it was put into liquidation in December 2025.
The then-health secretary Wes Streeting accused the firm of putting “NHS staff and patients in danger with substandard kit whilst lining their own pockets with taxpayers' money at a time of national crisis”.
He pledged to pursue the company with "everything we've got" to recover the money.
Neither Barrowman nor Mone were directors of PPE Medpro and previously denied any connection with it.
However, in 2023, Barrowman admitted he was the ultimate beneficial owner of the company during an interview with the BBC. In the same interview, Mone admitted she was a beneficiary of a trust which had received some of the profits from PPE Medpro.
The list of people being sued includes four former directors of PPE Medpro, including Arthur Lancaster, an accountant who is also a business associate of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
News of the case was first reported by the tax expert Dan Neidle.
It emerged last year that HMRC also put in a claim for £39m against PPE Medpro, for tax it said the company owed.
The Department for Health and Social Care told the BBC that the recovery of funds was a job for the appointed liquidators, and that it would not be appropriate for ministers to intervene. The department added that the Government had been clear that it expects robust action to be taken. Interpath declined to comment when approached by the BBC.
The National Crime Agency is also conducting a separate, criminal investigation into PPE Medpro.
