London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Aug 23, 2025

Go-between paid £21m in taxpayer funds for NHS PPE

Go-between paid £21m in taxpayer funds for NHS PPE

A Spanish businessman who acted as a go-between to secure protective garments for NHS staff in the coronavirus pandemic was paid $28m (£21m) in UK taxpayer cash.

The consultant had been in line for a further $20m of UK public funds, documents filed in a US court reveal.

The legal papers also reveal the American supplier of the PPE called the deals "lucrative".

The Department of Health said proper checks are done for all contracts.

A legal dispute playing out in the courts in Miami has helped shine a light on the amount of money some companies have made supplying the NHS with equipment to protect staff from Covid infection.

Earlier this year, as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly around the world, Florida-based jewellery designer Michael Saiger set up a business to supply PPE to governments.

He used his experience of working with factories in China to land what are described as "a number of lucrative contracts" supplying protective gloves and gowns to the NHS.

Mr Saiger signed up a Spanish businessman, Gabriel Gonzalez Andersson, to help with "procurement, logistics, due diligence, product sourcing and quality control" of the PPE equipment. In effect, Mr Andersson was expected to find a manufacturer for deals that had already been done.

Further $20m pledged


Mr Andersson was paid more than $28m (£21m) for his work on two government contracts to supply the NHS. He was described in court documents as having done "very well under this arrangement".


Earlier in the year there was a shortage of protective equipment for NHS medics


In June, Mr Saiger signed three more agreements to supply the NHS with millions of gloves and surgical gowns.

When the UK government paid up, his go-between, Mr Andersson, would have been in line for a further $20m in consulting fees.

But the court documents allege that once the agreements had been signed, Mr Andersson stopped doing any work for Mr Saiger. It's not clear whether Mr Andersson received any of the money for this second batch of deals.

This led to PPE deliveries being delayed to NHS frontline workers, Mr Saiger claims, and the company "scrambling" to fulfil the contracts by other means.

So far the UK's Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published contracts with Mr Saiger's company, Saiger LLC, totalling more than £200m. These were awarded without being opened to competition.

'Huge profits'


Alongside the legal dispute in Florida, the deals are set to be challenged in UK courts, by campaign group the Good Law Project. It accuses government ministers of not paying "sufficient regard" to tax-payers' money over a contract with the firm.

"We do not understand why, as late as June, government was still making direct awards of contracts sufficiently lucrative as to enable these sorts of profits to be made," Jolyon Maugham, the project's director told the BBC.

"The real criticism that is to be made here is of the huge profits that government allows to be generated."

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about PPE contracts the DHSC signed during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this year, the BBC revealed that 50 million face masks the government bought could not be used in the NHS because of safety concerns. And last week, it exposed concerns that the government had leaned on safety officials to certify PPE which had been wrongly classified.

A DHSC spokesperson said the department had been "working tirelessly" to deliver PPE, with more than 4.9 billion items delivered to frontline health workers so far and nearly 32 billion items ordered "to provide a continuous supply".

They added: "Proper due diligence is carried out for all government contracts, and we take these checks extremely seriously."

The BBC asked Gabriel Gonzalez Andersson for comment but he has not so far responded.

Saiger LLC said: "At the height of the pandemic, and at a time when the NHS was in need of high-quality PPE that met the required safety standards, we delivered for Britain, on time and at value.

"At no time have we ever used any 'middlemen'. We have few full-time staff so for large projects we bring in short-term contractors for additional expertise and capacity, allowing us to deliver what is needed.

"We are exceptionally proud to have played our part in providing frontline workers in the UK, including nurses, doctors and hospital staff, with the millions of pieces of PPE they need to stay safe and to save lives."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×