London - A British High Court judge ruled Wednesday that a company linked to an underwear tycoon must repay the government more than 121 million pounds ($163 million) for breaching a contract to supply 25 million surgical gowns during the coronavirus pandemic .

In an 87-page ruling, Justice Sara Cockerill found that the company, PPE Medpro, had "breached the contract" and that the Department of Health and Social Care was "entitled to the price of the gowns as damages," though not to the cost of storing the gowns.

The judge said the gowns "were not, contractually speaking, sterile, or properly validated as being sterile" and as a result, they "could not be used as sterile gowns."

PPE Medpro, which was established as the pandemic erupted in the spring of 2020, was a consortium led by

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