'Power and greed' Legal fight over billions made by US firm selling Covid tests to UK

In California, the state of sunshine and palm trees, a small group of men are locked in a big legal fight over the money made by a US company selling Covid tests to the British government.

- David Conn, Russell Scott

The founder of Innova Medical Group says his business collected $2bn (£1.6bn) in profits, one of the largest fortunes banked by any medical supplier in the scramble for lifesaving equipment in the early months of the pandemic.

In a storm of claims and counterclaims, Innova's boss, Charles Huang, is accused by former associates of "squandering" or moving $1bn of those profits and spending lavishly on luxury aircraft, an $18m house in Los Angeles and "homes for his mistresses".

The previously little-known Chinese-American businessman's fortune was transformed by the UK taxpayer through 11 government contracts worth approximately £4.3bn for lateral flow tests (LFTs) made in China and sold by Innova. The government fast-tracked the company after its British representatives sent a direct email to Dominic Cummings, the chief adviser to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, in July 2020. A Guardian investigation has found the fast-tracking of Innova was supported by the then chancellor Rishi Sunak's team at the Treasury.

Innova became for a period of at least four critical months the only company authorised to supply rapid Covid tests in the UK, despite scores of others developing similar kits. At the time, the government spending watchdog raised concerns, saying the lack of competition posed "risks to value for money".

In his evidence to the Covid inquiry last October, Cummings told how he had pushed through the first Innova contract with backing from Sunak's team. The intention was to allow the economy to reopen by providing enough kits for up to 10 million people a day to test for the disease. The plan, labelled "moonshot", was met with scepticism by scientists, including Jonathan Van-Tam, the then deputy chief medical officer for England, who has told the inquiry that he had "real doubts about whether it was workable". The moonshot plan became part of NHS test and trace.