Germany's government has received some bad news at a time of tricky budget negotiations.

The Higher Regional Court in Cologne has ruled in favor of a supplier of protective face masks, which the Federal Health Ministry ordered in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but later refused to accept or pay for. The judges ruled that the ministry should pay €85 million ($92 million), plus €33 million in default interest.

The ruling may well have a knock-on effect, as another 100 similar lawsuits are pending in court. If the Health Ministry is defeated in these cases, it could face a record loss of €2.3 billion in total.

The mask purchases are already considered one of the biggest tax wastage scandals in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.

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A look back: In March 2020, the world was literally overrun by COVID-19. A vaccine was still months away, and medical protective gear was dwindling. Respiratory masks with the FFP2, KN95 or N95 standard, which are supposed to provide reliable protection against the virus, were in desperately short supply and there was a worldwide rush to stock up.

"China, the producer of around 80% of such masks at the time, was in lockdown and had stopped exports," recalled Simone Borchardt, a lawmaker for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) which led the government at the time. "In Germany, we even developed guidelines on how we could use masks several times and whether they could be washed, that's how crazy it........

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