“The commission has started last Friday a legal action against the company AstraZeneca on the basis of breaches of the advanced purchase agreement,” EU spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said, adding the action was launched on behalf of the 27 member states. “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.”
De Keersmaecker said the action was launched “on behalf of the 27 member states that are fully aligned in their support of this procedure”.
“What matters to us in this case is that we want to make sure that there’s a speedy delivery of a sufficient number of doses that European citizens are entitled to, and which have been promised on the basis of the contract,” he said.
European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides tweeted:
In response, the drugs giant said that the legal action taken against AstraZeneca over shortfalls in its delivery of Covid vaccines is “without merit”.
“We believe any litigation is without merit and we welcome this opportunity to resolve this dispute as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement.
The EU executive and AstraZeneca have been at loggerheads as the British-Swedish company’s alleged shortfall of deliveries to the bloc hobbled the early efforts to roll out jabs.
In January, AstraZeneca warned that supplies of its coronavirus vaccine to Europe would be “lower than originally anticipated” due to reduced production at a manufacturing site. The company blamed “reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain”.
The commission -- which has been responsible for procuring vaccines for all of the bloc -- informed member states last week of its plans to take the company to court and pressed for support from national governments.
Diplomats said any lawsuit against AstraZeneca would begin in a Belgian court -- the jurisdiction agreed under the commission’s contract with the AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca has so far delivered just 31 million of the 120 million doses it had promised to the EU. It has warned it will likewise provide just 70 million of the 180 million more meant to be delivered over the rest of this year.
AstraZeneca’s French-Australian boss Pascal Soriot has argued that his company’s contract with the EU binds it only to a “best reasonable efforts” clause.
But the commission says the rest of the contract shows greater legal responsibility than that, and EU diplomats and lawmakers have pointed out that the company has largely delivered promised doses to Britain, where it is headquartered.
Despite ongoing problems with vaccine delivery schedules, Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that there will be enough doses of coronavirus vaccines available to immunise 70 percent of adults by the end of July.
Read more: EU to have enough vaccines for 70% of adults ‘in July’
