According to The Guardian, Movianto, a healthcare logistics and transport solutions provider that was involved in the management and the distribution of the stockpile, was sold two weeks ago for $133 million by its owner, a large US healthcare group, following an order by the UK government to mobilise the supply of all such equipment in a bid to curb the spread of the virus.
In addition, the newspaper revealed that Movianto was also involved in ongoing legal disputes with a company that built the enormous warehouse in Merseyside, because its owner, Oliver Morley, denied Movianto employees access to the stockpile. As a result, last March workers obtained a high court injunction to counter Morley's actions.
Though Movianto has maintained that the legal disputes and the sale did not affect its distribution of personal protective equipment, it has drawn public attention to the fact that the UK government decided to outsource the emergency stockpile's management, which, over three years, has been passed from a German-owned multinational company to a US one, the newspaper added.
The report comes amid nationwide complaints about widespread shortages of such equipment with Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisting the challenge to be "one of distribution rather than one of supply".