Current Events > The European Union is suing AstraZeneca

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/world/astrazeneca-eu-lawsuit.html

tl;dr: AZ promised 400 million doses, only delivered 30 million, so now the EU is suing

BRUSSELS The European Union has filed a lawsuit in Belgium against the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca over what it says is a breach of contract in the companys delivery of Covid-19 vaccine, the European Commission announced on Monday.

The blocs relationship with the company has soured rapidly since AstraZeneca said in January that it would not be able to deliver on its scheduled vaccine doses for the first quarter of the year, setting the regions vaccination campaign back by weeks.

The commission has started last Friday a legal action against the company AstraZeneca on the basis of breaches of the advanced purchase agreement, said Stefan de Keersmaecker, a spokesman on health issues for the commission, the E.U.s executive branch. The reason indeed being that the terms of the contract, or some terms of the contract, have not been respected and the company has not been in a position to come up with a reliable strategy to ensure the timely delivery of doses.

Mr. de Keersmaecker said that all 27 E.U. member countries supported the move.

The company, while acknowledging that production problems have caused delays, has said its failure to deliver is not a breach of contract, because the European Union had placed its order after other clients, most notably Britain. A spokesman for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The two parties had been engaged in a dispute arbitration effort, but the European Union decided to move ahead with a legal case. The contract is under Belgian law, and legal proceedings would happen in Belgium.

The European Unions vaccine contract with AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish company, was the first it signed, in August last year, and covers 400 million doses. So far, the company has delivered just over 30 million.

In an interview with The Times on Sunday, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the company had only supplied a quarter of what it had promised to the bloc, and had to deliver 200 million doses of vaccines by the end of this quarter.

She indicated that the European Union would not open talks over future supply. At the moment, the company has a delay in delivering 200 million doses of vaccine by the end of the second quarter, she said. The number speaks for itself.

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I thought CE would relish the opportunity to shit on the EU
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teep_ posted...

I thought CE would relish the opportunity to shit on the EU

I've touched on this topic so many times that there's just nothing left to say. The EU drafted a shitty contract that AZ isn't technically violating and their inability to ramp up new factories is clear evidence of bureaucratic bloat. Their seizure in Italy is borderline illegal and their "discovery" of vaccines bound for the UK that weren't bound for the UK at all, they just screwed up some paperwork, shows clear incompetency. The entire debacle shows where something like the EU fails spectacularly: rapid response. AZ is just being set up as their scapegoat for how poorly they've been handling things, especially when you realize that AZ is responsible for only something like 20% of the planned jabs in the EU yet its being treated like it's the sole reason the EU is so far behind everyone else on vaccinations.

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Can't say I blame the EU. It was undeniably shitty of them to block several vaccine transports to other countries, though this literally was a direct consequence of AZ delivering a far lower amount of vaccines than they promised.

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Honestly I can't blame them

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teep_ posted...

I thought CE would relish the opportunity to shit on the EU

Its only you that relishes shitting on the US for some weird odd reason

The rest of us dont really care and just take it as news