VIP lane: Arrest in fraud investigation

Five years after the Covid pandemic reached the UK and four years after Good Law Project revealed Luxe Lifestyle Limited bagged a £25.7m PPE contract with no employees and thousands of pounds of debts, we can reveal that two people involved with the troubled company are being investigated by HMRC.

The firm’s director, Karen Brost, was arrested on suspicion of fraud by failing to disclose information, conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and fraudulent evasion of income tax. Her husband, Tim Whyte, is suspected of acting as a shadow director and is also being investigated in connection with the same offences.

This is the second time arrests have been reported in relation to contracts awarded through the Tory government’s unlawful VIP lane, after a man was arrested last year in connection with PPE Medpro.

In April 2020, Luxe Lifestyle Limited snagged a £25.7m contract to supply gowns and facemasks. 

At the time, Luxe Lifestyle had no employees and was over £9000 in debt. Brost is the sole registered director of the company. Her husband is a former commodities trader at Goldman Sachs.

Luxe Lifestyle won the contract after the Tory activist Mark Higton contacted the former trade minister Greg Hands about the firm’s offer to provide PPE. Higton was chair of one of Greg Hands’s local constituency parties at the time.

Good Law Project understands from an HMRC document that it suspects Luxe Lifestyle made a profit in excess of £5m on the transaction. Much of the PPE supplied as part of this £25.7m deal was deemed unsuitable for use by the NHS.

When contacted by Good Law Project, HMRC said that it could neither confirm nor deny investigations and did not comment on identifiable taxpayers.

Lawyers for Brost said that she denied the offences in interview, was released without charge and is not subject to bail. Brost’s position is that she is innocent of the offences under investigation.

Lawyers for Whyte said that he is unable to offer any comment until the HMRC investigation has finished, but that the PPE supplied by Luxe Lifestyle was delivered to the specification required by the Department of Health and Social Care and was used by the NHS.

According to Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham, this is only the beginning.

“There are many questions still to be answered about how former Tory minister Greg Hands came to be recorded by Matt Hancock’s Department of Health and Social Care as a winner of the Luxe Lifestyle PPE contract and the nature and extent of his involvement,” Maugham said.