The verdict fell on Friday 18 June in the case between the European Commission and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The latter breached several points of the advance purchase agreement for its Covid-19 vaccine concluded with the European Commission in August 2020, the General Court ruled (see EUROPE 12547/7).
Specifically, AstraZeneca is accused of not having made “reasonable best efforts” to ensure delivery of the doses due to the EU. The contract was for the delivery of 300 million doses by the end of September 2021, of which 120 million doses should have been delivered to Member States in the first quarter. Of these 120 million doses, only 30.2 million were received.
The court noted that the company had a number of manufacturing sites that enabled it to meet its targets. Of these sites, Oxford Biomedica in the UK and Alix in the Netherlands were not used for this purpose.
“AstraZeneca argued during the procedure that it considered these factories to be part of the English production chain”, says the lawyer representing the Commission.
The court therefore concluded that this was a breach of the ‘reasonable best efforts’ undertaking and the ‘contractual warranty’. Indeed, when signing the contract, the company had assured the EU that it had no other commitments to third parties that could prevent it from meeting its obligations to the EU.
50 million doses expected
AstraZeneca was therefore ordered to deliver 50 million doses of its vaccine by September or face sanctions.
15 million doses will have to be delivered by 9 am on 26 July, 20 million by 23 August and 15 million by 27 September. If these deadlines are not met, the company will have to pay a penalty of €10 per missing dose.
However, this is less than the Commission’s demand for 90 million doses to be delivered by the end of June or face even heavier fines. The firm therefore “welcomed” the court’s decision and assured that it would be able to meet the required deliveries without difficulty.
“To date, the company has supplied more than 70 million doses to the European Union and will reach well over 80.2 million doses by the end of June 2021”, it says.
As for the rest of the doses due to the Commission, this will be discussed at the end of September, if necessary, during the hearings scheduled in the framework of the substantive procedure (see EUROPE 12718/4). (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)