The Court ordered AstraZeneca to deliver a total of 80.2 million doses by September 27, 2021
In a setback to European Union (E.U.), the Brussels Court of First Instance didn’t order the British-Swedish drugmaker, AstraZeneca to deliver 120 million doses of Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine to the bloc by June end 2021.
The Court was hearing the case filed by the E.U. accusing AstraZeneca of not delivering the agreed doses of COVID-19 vaccine. E.U. had filed a case to make AstraZeneca deliver 120 million doses by June end 2021 and all the agreed 300 million doses of the vaccine by September end 2021.
The Court ordered AstraZeneca to deliver a total of 80.2 million doses by September 27, 2021. If the drugmaker fails to comply with the orders, it will have to pay a penalty of €10 (£ 8.5; U.S. $ 12) per dose not delivered.
The fact is that AstraZeneca has already delivered 75 million of doses so far. Hence, delivering another 5.2 million doses will not be a challenge for AstraZeneca.
Speaking on the occasion, the General Counsel for AstraZeneca – Jeffrey Pott said, “We are pleased with the Court’s order. AstraZeneca has fully complied with its agreement with the European Commission and we will continue to focus on the urgent task of supplying an effective vaccine, which we are delivering at no profit to help protect people in Europe and around the world from the deadliest pandemic in a generation.”
AstraZeneca also said in a statement that it would substantially exceed 80.2 million doses supply by the end of June 2021.
The statement read, “The judgement also acknowledged that the difficulties experienced by AstraZeneca in this unprecedented situation had a substantial impact on the delay.”
The President of the European Commission – Ursula von der Leyen also welcomed the order but said it confirmed the Commission’s view that AstraZeneca had not lived up to the commitments it made in the contract.
Taking it to twitter, Ursula tweeted,
Good results for Europe!
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 18, 2021
The court judgment ordering AstraZeneca to deliver to us rapidly 50 million doses is good news for our vaccination campaign. It is also a clear recognition that our Advance Purchase Agreements have a sound legal basis.
Our vaccines strategy delivers. https://t.co/wD8OeR8vjy
The lawyer representing the E.U. said the Court order also says that AstraZeneca must also use its United Kingdom (U.K.) plant to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the E.U., if necessary.
The Court Order read, “The choice to monopolize the Oxford site for the benefit of the UK and in so doing to deprive the EU of an expressly foreseen production site seems even more prejudicial considering its production capacity is twice that of other sites.”
However, AstraZeneca maintains that the Court’s order does not oblige the company to use the U.K. plant to fulfil its contract with the E.U.
