Sadiq Khan’s emails, texts and other digital communications are to be searched for material relevant to Palantir’s High Court challenge over a proposed £50m Metropolitan Police contract. At a preliminary hearing in London on 3 September, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime agreed that Khan and more than a dozen other MOPAC and City Hall officials would be treated as potential document custodians.
The agreement is a procedural step, not a ruling on whether MOPAC acted lawfully when it blocked the proposed two-year deal in May. Palantir is challenging that decision, while MOPAC is defending it. A full hearing is due in January 2027.
What the disclosure agreement covers
Being a custodian means that relevant digital material held by the people identified will be searched and, where appropriate, disclosed in the litigation. The High Court heard that the exercise can include emails, text messages, WhatsApp messages and Microsoft Teams chats, insofar as they exist.
MOPAC initially did not consider it necessary or proportionate for the mayor to be included, its written submissions said. Its lawyers told the court that the decision had been taken by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, and that material held by Khan might also be held elsewhere. However, MOPAC agreed to include him after Palantir continued to seek his inclusion.
Sarah Brown, Khan’s former director of communications and strategy, is also among those whose correspondence is to be searched. MOPAC confirmed in court material that Brown initiated press briefings about its decision on the proposed contract. That confirmation is part of the disclosure dispute; it is not a determination of the central legal claim.
The exact date range and wider scope of the searches remained to be determined at the hearing. This matters because the parties have different views about which documents are relevant. The court has not decided the merits of either side’s account.
The £50m contract dispute
The proposed contract was for Palantir to provide artificial-intelligence technology intended to automate analysis of intelligence in criminal investigations. It would have run for two years and was valued at £50m, according to reports of the hearing.
MOPAC, the body through which the Mayor oversees policing and sets the Met’s direction and budget, stopped the deal in May. It said the force had seriously considered only Palantir as a supplier and had not presented its procurement strategy to MOPAC for approval. MOPAC described that as a clear and serious breach of procedure and said it could not be satisfied that the proposal demonstrated value for money.
Those are MOPAC’s arguments in the dispute, not findings made by the High Court. Palantir’s case is that MOPAC introduced an unlawful veto and wrongly took account of the company’s values and ethics when blocking the deal. The company is seeking a declaration that MOPAC acted unlawfully, an order quashing the decision and an order that the contract be awarded to it.
MOPAC’s legal position is that the Met’s procurement strategy was unlawful or created an unacceptable risk of unlawfulness, leaving it unable lawfully or realistically to approve the proposed contract. The competing claims remain disputed and will be tested in the proceedings.
Why the case matters in London
The dispute concerns the governance of a proposed policing technology contract rather than the operation of a system now approved by the court. For Londoners, the immediate question is whether the decision-making and procurement process for a major Met technology purchase met the required standards; the hearing does not answer it.
The case also includes a separate disclosure disagreement. MOPAC wants access to wider internal Palantir material, arguing it could help show whether the procurement process was flawed. Palantir has agreed to provide communications with the Met but is resisting broader requests, which it says are irrelevant to a case about the conduct of MOPAC and the Met.
The Met has begun a new procurement process for the work, according to reports of the hearing. That means the litigation and any future route to obtaining comparable technology are separate but related matters. No finding at the preliminary hearing resolves either the procurement dispute or Palantir’s challenge.
What happens next
The parties must settle, or ask the court to settle, the outstanding boundaries of document searches and disclosure. Material identified as relevant can then form part of the evidence before the full High Court hearing scheduled for January 2027.
Until then, the inclusion of Khan and other officials as custodians should not be read as a finding of wrongdoing by any individual. The central issue remains whether MOPAC’s May decision to block the proposed Palantir contract was lawful. That question is for the court to decide after hearing both sides.
