The High Court trial between PPE Medpro and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) drew to a close on its twelfth day, as the defence delivered a final volley of arguments accusing the government of failing to mitigate its alleged losses, relying on “unevidenced” cost claims, and ultimately using PPE Medpro as a scapegoat for pandemic-era procurement mismanagement.
In his final remarks, Charles Samek KC, counsel for PPE Medpro, reinforced the core message of the defence: that the DHSC’s case amounts to little more than “buyer’s remorse” and that the department has not met the burden of proof required to justify its £122 million breach of contract claim.
“It would, we respectfully submit, be a mistake… to assume that the Department’s starting point and perspective is the right one,” Samek told Mrs Justice Cockerill, urging her to consider the context of the original contract: a global pandemic, not a post-hoc procurement audit.
Samek returned to a key point raised throughout the trial — that even if the gowns had been rejected, the DHSC failed to repurpose or resell them, despite expert evidence showing that market demand remained high well into 2021.
He referenced the testimony of Igor Popovic, PPE Medpro’s expert on valuation, who told the court that the gowns could have fetched up to £85 million on the non-sterile PPE market if the government had acted in time.
“There was good demand worldwide for gowns,” Samek said. “There was good prospect of a sale for the DHSC.”
Following this, PPE Medpro’s junior counsel Ashley Cukier addressed the government’s claim for storage costs, arguing that the figures had been presented late in the process and were based on incomplete and unreliable evidence.
“The only witness put forward by the Department on the question of storage costs was Mr Bates,” Cukier noted. “He fairly admitted he was not the author of the spreadsheet. He had no substantive involvement in the production of it.”
Cukier then highlighted the extraordinary inconsistencies in the spreadsheet relied upon by the DHSC, including unexplained drops in gown quantities from one week to the next — including reductions of 1 million and 4 million gowns.
“He was unable to give any cogent explanation,” Cukier said. “It is an unevidenced claim. It is a bad claim, and one we say should fail.”
He also reminded the court that the DHSC had already abandoned its original claim for disposal costs.
In summing up, Samek warned against the risk of favouring the government’s version of events simply because it comes with institutional authority. He stressed that the trial had shown Medpro’s actions were transparent and contractually compliant — and that the real issue lay with the DHSC’s own mismanagement.
“Both parties approach this case from completely different starting points. Our case starts with the actual circumstances that existed at the time of entering into the contract — which was the pandemic emergency,” he said.
After PPE Medpro concluded its closing argument, Paul Stanley KC, representing the DHSC, offered a brief oral reply, defending the government’s position.
With all evidence and submissions now complete, Mrs Justice Cockerill confirmed that her judgment will be handed down before October.
The outcome will not only determine the fate of this high-profile £122 million claim, but could also have significant ramifications for how pandemic-era procurement disputes are viewed — and whether private contractors can be held accountable for government decisions made under emergency conditions.
