Palantir to sue Sadiq Khan over blocked £50m Met police contract | Metropolitan police
Palantir plans to sue London mayor Sadiq Khan after blocking a contract between the US spy technology firm and the Metropolitan police.
The Met had planned to use Palantir’s software to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations until Khan intervened in late May, sparking a row between the UK’s largest police force and the mayor’s office.
Khan said the contract violated purchasing rules and claimed his only competitor was Palantir.
The Times reported that Palantir’s lawyers plan to challenge the decision in court by writing to the Mayor’s Police and Crime Office. Khan’s office confirmed they had received the letter. Palantir declined to comment for this article.
A spokesman for Khan’s office said: “The Met did not properly present its procurement strategy and the Met only fully engaged one potential supplier: Palantir.”
They added that the decision was not taken on the basis of “values or political considerations”, but rather that the procurement process “does not adequately demonstrate value for money for Londoners”.
The Met’s possible £50 million deal with Palantir is one of a series of deals currently under fire between the US software company and UK government agencies, amid a growing wave of discontent with the company’s public ideological statements.
On Tuesday morning, technology secretary Liz Kendall confirmed the government was carrying out a full review of its NHS contract with Palantir, considering whether the £330 million deal should be extended or activate a break clause that would allow the company to stop using its services in early 2027.
Last week, a parliamentary committee dismissed Palantir’s existence as “unacceptable point of weaknessin a public sector increasingly dependent on a handful of US tech firms.
In April, Palantir published a mini-manifesto about X extolling the benefits of US power and implying that some cultures are inferior to others; one lawmaker called it “the ramblings of a supervillain.”
Speaking at the SXSW business and technology conference last week, Wes Streeting described some of the company’s executives as “Blofeld bad guys” but did not say whether he thought the contract should be terminated.
Asked about the review of Palantir’s NHS contract, deputy prime minister David Lammy said it was important for each department to have “diversification” between government contracts.
He said: “I support the call we heard last week from the select committee to ensure public service delivery departments are diverse… I support the review that the secretary of state for health is looking at into Palantir in the health service. Diversification is key.”
Norwich South Labor MP Clive Lewis said: “In democracies democracies can change their minds and democracies are sovereign.
“You look at other countries, France and Germany, that have stayed pretty far away from Palantir. They’ve had the same briefings that every other European country has, which is allowing a company like this, with close ties to unsavory political views, to cause trouble.”
