EU suing AZ

[Baileysforchristmas]

Do you think it’s a good idea to sue a non profit vaccine producer in the middle of a pandemic? Especially when it’s in the contract the EU can’t sue for late delivery

www.politico.eu/article/belgium-was-warned-eus-astrazeneca-contract-lacked-teeth-documents/

Best Efforts doesn't mean trying their best. It is a legally defined term in Belgian law which means they should be expected to deliver in line with their capabilities and size. I fear they neglected to tell EU about U.K. first clause and have seriously underdelivered against their contract. I'm not sure that suing them is the best path forward but I am sick to death of the Anti-Eu sentiment on these repeated threads.

So the U.K. factories are producing only for the U.K., meanwhile the EU factories are being used to supply the Eu and the rest of the world.

What AZ has been made in EU and supplied outside of EU? I am aware of a small amount to UK but that's it.

I think this is a misconception that many have but the facts don't appear to support it.

I fear they neglected to tell EU about U.K. first clause and have seriously underdelivered against their contract.

Was there really a UK 1st clause? The UK contract with AZ doesn't really say that. Or was it simply that the UK contract with OX was agreed beforehand and all the UK manufacturing capacity was booked out to that order. The chances are that some of the EU initial doses will come from the UK which may be in the contract although 5.1 & 5.4 seem to confuse the situation.

Best Efforts doesn't mean trying their best. It is a legally defined term in Belgian law which means they should be expected to deliver in line with their capabilities and size.
So if AZ said they could make 100 million doses but it turned out that in reality (either due to unforeseen production issues or just being too optimistic) they were only capable of producing 30 million, then is that not their 'best efforts'?
Presumably the original figures were based on all their facilities being up and running at full capacity. I think it would be really hard for lawyers to prove that a company didn't try as hard as it could, especially when dealing with biological processes where anything that goes wrong can ruin a whole batch.

It strikes me as odd that people on MN are debating the legalities of an unseen contract. The EU’s legal team would not pursue this unless there was a case.

@poppycat10

how on earth do you book people in for vaccines when week after week after week AZ are changing that schedule because that is what is happening. They are consistently under-delivering and changing schedules

ALL the vaccine companies are doing that. The UK has had hiccups in supply too and not just because of the Indian consignment being held up/diverted to people in India. Vaccine production is an exact science except that it isn't.

Not to the extent that AZ are. Our government in an EU country have come out and said that they problems they are having with supply is because of AZ constantly underdelivering week after week. I think it was only 1 week out of 13 they actually delivered what they said they would when they said they would. There maybe minor issues with the other companies but it isn't the same as with AZ. It isn't hiccups at this stage with AZ it is continual fucking around with schedules.

Do they have to deliver by weekly schedules contractually or is it by end of second quarter, for example

Both UK and EU full contracts have been published online, the UK may not include costs.

@pinkmagnolias

It strikes me as odd that people on MN are debating the legalities of an unseen contract. The EU’s legal team would not pursue this unless there was a case.

The redacted contract is available for anyone to see. Parts that were supposed to be redacted were also made available at one point in error by the EU, you can still find copies. You could as easily say that AZ would settle out of court unless they had a case. That's why the court system exists as an arbiter, to manage disputed versions.

What exactly is it that you think the EU hope to gain from the legal case?

poppycat10
how on earth do you book people in for vaccines when week after week after week AZ are changing that schedule because that is what is happening. They are consistently under-delivering and changing schedules

In my line, we are setting up schedules arranging and coordinating with relevant HCP with dates for vaccine deliveries only to have to contact them cancel as we don't get the planned amounts, it is a logistical nightmare.

Not to mention it is letting people down, especially vulnerable people who are looking at this vaccine as a chance to get a resemblance of normality back.

Nearly every week there has been an announcement from AZ mainly lowering the amount delivered and when they did just once deliver over the allotted announcement we are supposed to praise them.

This is not just short a million or two it is a third of what AZ claimed they could deliver.

The first week we were due 125000 I think vaccines, 27000 were delivered, that was the start and it has continued since.

@Dublincailin there is plenty of unused stock in other EU countries, what’s happening with Demarks AZ vaccines which they won’t use now?

A number of posters here have reported that Az supply is very uneven week on week, which is creating real logistical difficulties.

Yet, at the same time, we know that the EU has several million doses of Az in store, not yet used.

I appreciate that the situation varies hugely from country to country within the EU. But I don't understand how both those things can be true. If there is in effect a significant buffer of already delivered and stockpiled doses, then why is the unpredictability of deliveries impacting so immediately on bookings? Shouldn't that unpredictability be in effect smoothed out by the unused supply already on hand?

@Tal45

Just seems like another way to distract from the fact they've done/are doing a shit job. I thought that was our government's speciality but no it seems the EU are even worse.

This is exactly what it is about

@Motorina

1. Where I live you get a fixed date for your second appointment after your first vaccine, not so spaced as in the UK (used to be 3-6 weeks, now they’re extending to 6-8), and they will not give you a date they can’t commit 100% to. They can’t invite people for the existing AZ stock if they can’t 100% promise them a second date already. Which is impossible when you can clearly see AZ is not delivering as per schedule.

2. They could rush and get rid of all the ‘stockpiled’ vaccines (see explanation below) in a week, but what’s the point in using them all up and then having to stop again when next week’s delivery of AZ doesn’t arrive? This way they’re using them slowly but at a regular pace, vaccination centres can operate consistently and staffing and other logistics run fairly smoothly. It would be more disruptive to stop and go every time you get a few doses.

3. Every country has stockpiled doses. From the moment they arrive in the country until they’re in someone’s arm, that dose is technically unused and stockpiled. Not even in the UK is a truck full of vaccines unloaded at 6am and all jabs gone by the evening. There is ‘unused stock’ in the country all the time, but of course they’re not interested politically in explaining it like this to people. ‘The EU is refusing AZ’ has been the ongoing narrative, which isn’t completely true.

But Denmark aren’t using AZ at all, what’s happened to these doses? What’s happened to the 250k that were supposed to go to Australia?

@BuggerBognor so when the contract was signed we were in the EU but Brexit happened so now the UK vaccines are not in the EU so not included in the supply chain? It is a very grey area, UVDL definitely thought theEU had rights to the UK vaccines, she said it in one of her speeches (rants) at the time.

@BuggerBognor

Can I ask what been a remainer has to do with this debate?

Just curious.

@MarshaBradyo

Do they have to deliver by weekly schedules contractually or is it by end of second quarter, for example

As far as I am aware(where I live anyway) there are delivery schedules x amount on x date . Except they don't get x amount of doses, AZ lower it pretty much every time. Because of this you have to stockpile a certain amount for 2nd doses because you know you will get less than was promised. You can't schedule people in for their first dose because you end up having to cancel appointments because AZ don't deliver.

For instance last weekend we were due to get 45,000 AZ doses but got 9,000 instead. Can you blame countires for being pissed off at AZ when this carry on is constantly happening? I mean obviously a lot of posters here don't think this is an issue but the government in countries where this is consistanly happening whilst they are trying to plan the biggest vaccine rollout in history do.

@Aloethere but there are deliveries as Germany seems to be doing much better with their vaccine rollout. Denmark aren’t using their’s so who will get these doses? What happened to Australia’s doses?

Here you are booked for 2nd dose when you have your first one. They need to plan for this and ensure it will be available. My 2nd is booked for 4 weeks after my first.

@Aloethere I don't think anyone is saying it's not an issue, or that we can't understand the frustrations. The UK is also frustrated, as our vaccine supply has been both lumpy and significantly less than promised.

The question is what the EU hopes to achieve by this legal action. The contract is at it's simplest "The EU gives AZ money; AZ gives the EU vaccines".

Assuming AZ is pumping out doses as fast as it can, then this legal action isn't going to get more vaccines to the EU. And the EU, we're lead to believe, hasn't handed over all the money yet.

So what resolution are the EU hoping that the courts will award? I can't see that answered in any of the English-language reporting to which I have access.

@Baileysforchristmas we were not in the EU, we left on 31 Jan 2020. That’s why the clause was drafted to state that, for the purposes of the clause, the U.K. was part of the EU because otherwise the U.K. wouldn’t be considered part of the EU even though we were in the transition period. I have seen the wording in many contracts, and even used it myself. I haven’t read the clause in full but it may just be that the EU wanted to make sure that the AZ vaccine was produced “locally” and were happy for that to include the U.K., rather than it being supplied from India, for example. It does not mean that everything produced in the U.K. has to be supplied to the EU - unless that’s what the clause actually said.

It’s hard to judge as we’ve always heard about ‘lumpy supply’ here.

Maybe the fluctuations are far less than what you are experiencing though.

Also I’ve not really found out how production fits in and who is responsible if it’s slow.

Is U.K. (faster) production down to U.K.?

I guess the court case will show all this (unless someone knows already on here).

How long will it likely take? Are we talking years or should it be quite quick