Of all the unusual PPE deals we lifted the lid on, it was one of the strangest.

In the early Summer of 2020, Government awarded contracts worth over £250m to Saiger, a jeweller based in Florida, for the supply of PPE. Saiger had previously admitted it had no experience in supplying PPE.

We then revealed that Saiger had paid $28m to a colourful ‘middleman’ to help with vaguely defined services in connection with the deal - and planned to pay $22m more. And that the PPE that was purchased was bought at an inflated price and included products that were not suitable for use.

It is a now-familiar story of profiteering, secrecy and waste.

In February 2021, the Court granted us permission to bring our judicial review, indicating that it agreed that there were proper questions to ask about the contract. We hoped the litigation would allow us to get to the bottom of what had happened. But the case was then put on hold by the Court while some of our other PPE cases, with similar legal arguments, were determined.

Although permission was granted in Saiger, more recent courts have shown a reluctance to look at pandemic procurement. In the circumstances, we have decided that it is not a good use of your money to proceed with this claim. We have agreed with Government not to continue with the claim, and to pay their reasonable costs up to their summary grounds of resistance. We are pleased to have broken this story, and that the Court gave us permission, but the change in temperature in the courts means we do not think it makes sense to take it forward.

Thank you for your support.

We have now learned of another contract Government entered into with the jeweller Saiger, worth £36 million, for face masks. 

The contract was for FFP2 masks  – which protect the wearer, unlike the ones we all wear to the supermarket. But to protect the wearer they need to be adjustable - which means headstraps - and all of these masks have ‘earloops’. Earloop masks, Government has admitted in other cases, can’t be used in the NHS because they don’t give a proper fixing. We expect these £36m of masks will also be unusable.

But that’s not all. 

Saiger was awarded a contract worth £70.52m to buy 10.2m sterile surgical gowns. This is the contract we are challenging in court. Almost all of the gowns supplied under that £70m+ contract are unable to be used as such because they are wrapped in such a way that their sterile quality can’t be maintained.

At this stage, you might be wondering: shouldn’t a responsible Government just put up its hands and say “we got this wrong”? 

Instead it is spending, quite literally, millions in public funds trying to defend the indefensible. And what we want to know is, who is this spending for - is it in your interests? Or is it to avoid political embarrassment?

If you would like to support our attempts to deliver transparency, please donate to the legal challenge. 

You will recall the strange case of the jeweller, the middleman and the £250million PPE contract. Just before Christmas, we received a response from Government to our pre-action letter in which we demanded answers over why it awarded such a huge contract to a jewellery specialist over other suppliers, why it paid over the odds and what checks were in place to ensure Saiger delivered. In line with our commitment to transparency, you can read this response here. 

We will update you on our next steps shortly.