Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman are among individuals being sued in an attempt to recover some of the millions owed to the government by his collapsed company, PPE Medpro, the BBC understands.
The government was awarded £122m plus interest from PPE Medpro last year, after a court ruled the firm had breached a contract to supply 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.
Mone and Barrowman have been approached for comment.
PPE Medpro was set up in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic as the government struggled to secure supplies of protective equipment to protect health workers during the acutest phase of the outbreak.
It won its first government contract to supply masks through a so-called ‘VIP lane’, after a recommendation by Baroness Mone, who sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer.
However by the end of 2022, the government sued the firm, claiming the medical gowns supplied did not comply with relevant healthcare standards.
Last year the High Court found in the government’s favour, ruling that PPE Medpro had failed to prove whether or not its surgical gowns, which were to be used by NHS workers, had undergone a validated sterilisation process.
While the government had won its case, it wasn’t immediately clear how it would get its money back. The company itself had less than £1m on its balance sheet, and was put into liquidation in December 2025.
But the Health Secretary at the time, Wes Streeting, accused PPE Medpro 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.
Barrowman and Mone were not directors of PPE Medpro – and for a long time they denied any connection with the firm.
However in 2023 Barrowman confirmed in a BBC interview that he was the ultimate beneficial owner of the company.
In the same interview, Mone admitted that 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. Lancaster has been approached for comment.
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 says the company owed.
The Department for Health and Social Care said that the recovery of funds was a job for the appointed liquidators, and that it would not be appropriate for ministers to intervene – but that the government had been clear that it expects robust action to be taken. Interpath declined to comment.
The National Crime Agency is also conducting a separate, criminal investigation into PPE Medpro.
Source:
www.bbc.co.uk
