London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has agreed to have his texts and emails searched as part of a High Court legal battle with US tech firm Palantir. Palantir is suing the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) after it blocked a £50m AI contract with the Metropolitan Police in May 2026, citing procurement failures. While MOPAC claims the Met's process was flawed, Palantir alleges an unlawful veto based on its ethics. Both sides have set aside over £8m for the lawsuit, with a full hearing set for January 2027.
Palantir legal claim against MOPAC
- ▪In June 2026, US technology firm Palantir filed a legal claim in the High Court against the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime over its decision to block a contract.
- ▪Palantir and the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime have set aside more than £8 million in combined legal costs for the High Court case.
- ▪Palantir's lawsuit seeks a declaration that the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime acted unlawfully, an order quashing the decision, and an order that the contract be awarded.
- ▪A full High Court hearing of Palantir's lawsuit against the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime is scheduled to be held in January 2027.
- ▪Palantir claims in court documents that the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime introduced an unlawful veto by wrongly considering Palantir's values and ethics.
Met Police procurement process failures
- ▪The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime stated that Palantir was the only supplier the Metropolitan Police had seriously considered, preventing City Hall from ensuring value.
- ▪The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime stated that the Metropolitan Police failed to present its procurement strategy for approval, calling it a serious procedural breach.
- ▪The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime blocked a proposed £50 million contract between the Metropolitan Police and Palantir in May 2026, citing procurement process failures.
- ▪Following the blocking of the contract in May 2026, the Metropolitan Police has begun working on a new procurement process for the contract.
Digital communications disclosure scope
- ▪Sarah Brown, Downing Street's director of communications and former communications director for Sadiq Khan, will have her correspondence searched as part of the disclosure process.
- ▪More than a dozen other officials from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime and City Hall will have their digital communications searched for the lawsuit.
- ▪The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime consented to include Sadiq Khan in the communications search on a pragmatic basis following persistent requests from Palantir.
- ▪London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has agreed to have his text messages and emails searched as part of the High Court legal battle with Palantir.
Palantir document disclosure dispute
- ▪Palantir is resisting the demand for its internal files, with its lawyers describing the request in court papers as an irrelevant fishing expedition.
- ▪Palantir argued in written submissions that the disclosure request would force the firm to review approximately 150,000 documents.
- ▪The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime is demanding access to Palantir's internal files to show that the Metropolitan Police's contract award process was flawed.
AI policing contract background
- ▪The proposed two-year contract would have allowed Palantir to provide artificial intelligence technology to the Metropolitan Police to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations.
- ▪Palantir is a United States-based technology company that provides services to the Israeli military and the United States Trump administration's immigration enforcement.
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