EU Is Suing AstraZeneca Over Covid-19 Vaccine Shortfall -- 2nd Update
26 April 2021 - 4:41PM
Dow Jones News
By Daniel Michaels
BRUSSELS -- The European Union is suing AstraZeneca PLC for
failure to deliver on its Covid-19 vaccine contract, a sharp
escalation in a long-simmering dispute over supplies of the shot
and a sign of how desperate governments are to secure scarce
doses.
"Our priority is to ensure #Covid-19 vaccine deliveries take
place," Stella Kyriakides, the EU's health commissioner, said on
Twitter on Monday.
The suit was filed on Friday in a Brussels court, said a
spokesman for the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
Commission officials have said their goal is to receive their
contracted doses, not to punish the company.
AstraZeneca said it regretted the commission's decision to take
legal action and was looking forward to working with it "to
vaccinate as many people as possible."
What the lawsuit can achieve remains unclear since AstraZeneca
has made clear that it will be unable to significantly increase
vaccine deliveries in the immediate future.
The commission said last week it was preparing a lawsuit against
AstraZeneca. The pair have wrangled since AstraZeneca earlier this
year said it would be able to deliver only a fraction of the up to
400 million doses it was contracted to deliver to the bloc by
midyear.
Of 120 million doses agreed on for delivery in the first
quarter, the EU received about 30 million, said the commission
spokesman. For the current quarter, the two sides had contracted
for 180 million doses. Almost a month in, deliveries are in the
single-digit millions.
A commission official had said last week that the EU was
"keeping all our options open, including legal options."
The EU lawsuit is being brought by the commission jointly with
all 27 member states.
--Cecilia Butini contributed to this article.
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 26, 2021 10:26 ET (14:26 GMT)
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