Commission preparing legal case against AstraZeneca, claim reports

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The European Commission (EC) is making legal preparations for a case against pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca after it cut deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine to the EU, it has been reported by Politico.

The move is a further step in the bloc's severance of ties with the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker, with the repeated cuts in deliveries contributing to the slow rollout of the EU's vaccine programme.

Politico claims that the source - an unnamed EU official - confirmed that the Commission was preparing to sue the company. "EU states have to decide if they participate. It is about the fulfilment of deliveries by the end of the second quarter," the official was quoted as saying.

They added that the issue was discussed at a meeting of EU diplomats and that the move would be supported by the majority of member states.

Also read: Brussels faces rebellion over vaccine export restrictions

"What matters is that we ensure the delivery of a sufficient number of doses in line with the company's earlier commitments," a spokesman for the EU Commission said. "Together with the member states, we are looking at all options to make this happen."

AstraZeneca has yet to respond to the news.

In March, a letter was sent by Brussels to the pharma company in the first step of a possible legal procedure. The deadline for a reply expired earlier this month when an EC spokesperson said that the issue had been discussed with AstraZeneca but there were still "a number of outstanding points" on which the bloc was still seeking further clarification.

While the Commission has not elaborated on this further, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published details of the letter which showed the EU was seeking clarification on what it considers to be a delayed application to the European Medicines Association for approval of the vaccine.

The EC also queried how the company had spent more than €224 million granted to it by the EU in September 2020 for the purchase of vaccine ingredients, for which AstraZeneca had yet to provide receipts confirming the purchases.

The company, under the contract, had committed to making its "best reasonable efforts" to deliver 180 million vaccine doses in Q2 2021, adding up to a total of 300 million in the first half of the year.

Read more: EU and AstraZeneca clash over vaccine supply transparency

However, on March 12, AstraZeneca released a statement saying that it would deliver only one-third of that amount. A letter was sent to Brussels one week after the statement was released.

Both parties agreed, as part of the contract, that any unresolved disputes would be settled by Belgian courts.

The EU has already opted not to take up an option for the purchase of a further 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

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