Palantir and London MOPAC end legal dispute over blocked £50m Met Police contract

Controversial US-based technology company Palantir and the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), overseen by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, have agreed to end their legal dispute, avoiding a High Court trial scheduled for January.

Palantir initiated the legal action in June after Khan intervened to block a £50 million contract for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) in criminal investigations to automate intelligence analysis. While the intervention cited breaches of procurement rules, it followed earlier comments by Khan on corporate ethics and values amid scrutiny of Palantir's work for the Israeli military and US authorities. Palantir accused the mayor of politicising procurement and feared that value-based objections could threaten its broader UK operations, including its £330 million Federated Data Platform (FDP) contract with the NHS.

In a joint statement, both parties announced they were withdrawing all claims. MOPAC further clarified that it blocked the proposed MPS contract based strictly on statutory duties on procurement regulations, governance, affordability, and value for money, not on Palantir's ethics or values. 

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