Will UK taxpayers get their £122m back from PPE Medpro?

The high court told the company linked to Michelle Mone to pay up over the supply of defective gowns, but there appears no clear route to reclaim the funds

The five-year unravelling of Britain's most high-profile Covid contracts scandal involving a baroness, her husband and multimillion-pound government deals accelerated last week with a high court judgment against the company linked to the former Tory peer Michelle Mone.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cockerill, ruled that PPE Medpro, owned by Mone's husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, supplied defective personal protective equipment (PPE) for use in the NHS during the pandemic. Cockerill ordered that PPE Medpro must return the sum of 122m, which the Department of Health and Social Care paid for the order of 25m sterile surgical gowns, under a contract awarded in June 2020 via the VIP lane.