NHS Supply Chain has settled two linked legal claims against its procurement of a £4.4bn logistics contract, HSJ has reported.
The two claims brought by logistics firm Unipart have been discontinued, NHS Supply Chain said. This concludes three of four legal challenges brought against the procurement, which NHSSC has “maintained and continue to maintain… was conducted properly”.
The contract for the logistics provider was formally awarded in May 2025 after the High Court in February agreed with NHSSC to lift an automatic suspension applied to the process, allowing the agency to award the contract to its preferred supplier US firm GXO.
The terms of the settlement between NHSSC and Unipart are confidential, according to a court order filed earlier this week.
Unipart was the incumbent logistics supplier to NHSSC from 2019. However, in April 2024, it brought the first of two legal challenges against the NHS agency after it was not included on the final shortlist of two firms bidding for the new contract.
It argued that NHSSC had broken procurement rules in the way it evaluated its bid for the contract, which could run for up to nearly 12 years. NHSSC denied this in a defence filed with the court.
Date: 19 January