Palantir row: Sadiq Khan to hand over WhatsApp messages over scrapped £50m Met contract
The London Mayor is being sued over his decision to block Palantir's £50 million contract with Met Police
Lord Sadiq Khan has agreed to have his texts and emails searched as part of an ongoing legal battle with data firm Palantir.
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The London Mayor is being sued in the High Court over his decision to block Palantir's £50 million contract with the Metropolitan Police in May.
Sir Sadiq, along with 17 other people in the Mayor's office, has been ordered to hand over communications to the court.
Sarah Brown, his former director of communications who now works for the Prime Minister, will also have her correspondence examined.
The US tech giant alleges Sir Sadiq blocked the deal because he disagreed with the firm's "ethics".
The proposed two-year partnership would have allowed Palantir, which has worked with US immigration enforcement and Israel's military, to provide AI for criminal investigations.
But the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) said there had been a “clear and serious breach” of procurement rules, arguing that only Palantir had been considered for the contract.
In response, Palantir accused Sir Sadiq of "putting politics above public safety" and announced in June that it would be suing the Mayor.
Officials have been ordered to turn in messages sent between mid-March and the end of May this year - the dates surrounding the Mayor's vetoing of the deal.
The material - including texts, WhatsApp messages, and Microsoft Teams chats - will be scoured for anything relevant to the issues in the High Court case.
The decision to demand Ms Brown to hand over her messages came after Mopac confirmed she was responsible for media briefings detailing that Sir Sadiq had objected to the firm's “values and ethics”.
Palantir previously blasted the date range as "unacceptably narrow" and called on the court to order four additional staff members to turn in their messages - a demand it has since dropped.
The legal battle comes as ministers are mulling whether to use a break clause to drop Palantir’s seven-year, £330 million contract with the NHS.
Zack Polanski has called on the government to terminate the contract between Palantir and the NHS.
A spokesman for the Mayor of London said: “It would not be appropriate for us to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”