Thread by @JolyonMaugham

Why we are referring a series of transactions involving the Prime Minister's advisor Munira Mirza, Priti Patel and Matt Hancock to the Serious Fraud Office. THREAD.

Government's position has always been that the award of PPE contracts was a politically neutral process. Its usual formulation is that all PPE contracts were awarded pursuant to "the same eight-stage process to assess and process offers." See for example nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

However, @GoodLawProject has uncovered evidence that go-betweens who had little apparent to offer apart from their political connections were paid vast sums of money to deliver contracts.

We don't believe there is any 'good' explanation for this fact. We believe it points powerfully to the process being corrupt. And (as we will show) certain details of the process itself point in the same direction.

That is why we are referring the matter to @UKSFO.

Now to brass tacks.

The referral concerns two contracts awarded to Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited (PDL) for respectively £28.8m (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/8b9eb33…) and £102.6m (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/22f31ba…). There may be other contracts. The go-betweens were Surbjit Shergill and Samir Jassal.

The story begins with Mr Shergill's engagement.

Here is what PDL has told us about the terms upon which it did business with Mr Shergill. And the basis of Mr Jassal's engagement.

What we know is that in the second half of 2020 Mr Shergill subsequently invoiced PDL almost £20m (£16.37m plus VAT). You can see the invoices here: drive.google.com/file/d/1Gwx5Be… PDL denies only that it paid those sums *for the £102.6m contract*. It does not deny that it paid them.

We also know that the net assets of Mr Shergill's company Brooklands Investment Group Limited rose from £200 on 31 March 2020 to almost £10m in February 2021.

What politically clean, neutral process justifies the payment of sums of this size? And if Mr Shergill's companies were providing normal professional services why did they not charge a normal fixed rate per hour rather than a contingent sum payable only on success?

The Mail has described Mr Shergill as a former bricklayer. There's nothing wrong with bricklaying but it does not suggest an ability to help with PPE tenders. My belief, unevidenced, is that his function was to shield links between PDL and Mr Jassal.

Samir Jassal is a different figure altogether. We hold photos of him with Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron. And, as we will show, he has a direct email line to Munira Mirza, Matt Hancock and Priti Patel. We believe he was the real go-between.

Here is Mr Shergill writing to Munira Mirza (copying Mr Jassal) and offering PPE and thanking her for speaking to him. We know she replied and the evidence suggests she caused civil servants to contact Mr Jassal.

What proper role did Ms Mirza have in awarding PPE contracts?

We also hold details of correspondence between Mr Shergill and Priti Patel in which he says "as a result of your intervention" we are in discussions to offer BYD Type IIR facemasks.

Ms Patel wrote back immediately saying she had drawn the attention of Cabinet Office (who were handling PPE procurement) to the products he could supply.

A week later, on 21 May, PDL signed a contract for £28.8m BYD Type IIR facemasks (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/8b9eb33…).

The price paid for those facemasks was 48p each. This was higher than Government’s internal benchmark price at the time according to leaked internal benchmarking which showed a price of 42p. Each penny on 60m face masks represents a cost of £600,000 more to the taxpayer.

What proper role did Ms Patel have in awarding PPE contracts? Why did she write to Michael Gove and the Secretary of State for transport interceding on PDL's behalf?

It gets worse.

We hold a letter from lawyers for Matt Hancock in which he says that Mr Shergill emailed DHSC with a quotation for Meixin 2016V FFP3 facemasks on 26 June 2020 and Mr Jassal followed up with emails and phone calls.

Only four days later, on 30 June 2016, a "request for deal approval" was made to buy what we know to be 20m of those same type of masks at an "outlier" price of £5.13 per mask.

This is quite an "outlier" price. According to civil servants the average price per mask then being paid was £2.69. The cost difference between buying 20m masks at £5.13 per mask and at £2.69 per mask is about £50m.

What was the explanation offered for paying that outlier price?

On 6 July 2020, the Accounting Officer was told that "FFP3 masks remain our key concern" and there was an "acute shortfall of FFP3" and there was a risk of "complete stock out of FFP3".

But that cannot be right because four days earlier another supplier was told "we are no longer looking to purchase" MX2016V FFP3 models. And "DHSC now has sufficient supply arrangements in place to meet requirements over the coming months."

It looks very much as though the accounting officer was being misled in order to cause him approve a contract with Samir Jassal/Surbjit Shergill's client at what civil servants thought was a vastly inflated price.

But that's not all.

We also know Mr Jassal has emailed "Matt" Hancock regarding antibody tests and acknowledging he has been "most helpful previously".

Mr Hancock has also acknowledged replying to emails from Mr Jassal.

What help has Mr Hancock provided to Mr Jassal? And why?

Standing back, what we can see is odd contracts some entered into on the back of falsehoods, well-connected go-betweens making huge amounts of money, and senior politicians helping those go-betweens out for reasons that are not easy to fathom.

What there is no obvious explanation for - despite these leaks from multiple sources to @GoodLawProject and an investigation by us lasting many months - is why those senior political figures (Matt Hancock, Priti Patel and Munira Mirza) got involved.

@GoodLawProject But what we really need @UKSFO to look at is what happened to those vast sums which seem to have been paid to Mr Shergill. Where - and to whom - did those sums then flow?

@GoodLawProject @UKSFO Inevitably this thread is a summary of the key elements of a complex story. Some, although not all, of the documents published here were previously published in this more detailed account, albeit of only part of the story goodlawproject.org/update/patel-m…

I will place all of these materials before the Serious Fraud Office over the weekend. If, which is open to real doubt, we do still have an independent criminal justice system I believe they should investigate.