The European Commission confirmed on Monday 26 April that it had finally started legal action against AstraZeneca on Friday (see EUROPE 12705/1) for breach of the Advance Purchase Agreement with the company for Covid-19 vaccines.
As the contract in question is governed by Belgian law (Section 18.4), it will be for the Belgian courts to settle the dispute (Section 18.5). The case has been referred to the Court of First Instance in Brussels and the introductory hearing will take place on Wednesday 28 April, a Commission spokesperson confirmed to EUROPE.
“Some terms of the contract have not been respected and the company has not been in a position to come with a reliable strategy to ensure the timely delivery of doses”, the European institution’s health spokesman, Stefan De Keersmaecker, told reporters on Monday.
The Commission launched the legal proceedings on its own behalf and on behalf of the 27 Member States, with their full support.
“What matters to us in this case is to make sure that there is a speed in delivery of a sufficient number of doses that the European citizens are entitled to and which have been promised on the bases of the contract”, Mr De Keersmaecker stressed, a statement later echoed on Twitter by Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides.
AstraZeneca will “strongly defend itself”
In a statement issued a few hours after the Commission’s announcement, the pharmaceutical company “regrets” the decision, assured that it had “fully complied” with the agreement and promised that it would “strongly defend itself in court”.
“We believe any litigation is without merit and we welcome this opportunity to resolve this dispute as soon as possible”, the company added.
AstraZeneca had committed to deliver 180 million doses of its vaccine to the EU in the second quarter of 2021 and 300 million doses in total in the first half of the year. However, the company recently announced that the EU would only be able to count on 70 million doses for this quarter and 100 million in total for the first half of the year.
“Our company is about to deliver almost 50 million doses to European countries by the end of April, in line with our forecast”, it said in its statement on Monday.
To view the Advance Purchase Agreement: https://bit.ly/2KZwYC7 (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)