Thread by @deGourlay

Thread: The EU and AstraZeneca have agreed to publish the APA contract. Whilst the EU pushed for this they appear to have shot themselves in the foot.
ec.europa.eu/commission/pre…

Clause 5.1 "AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Initial Doses within the EU for distribution...."

There are two features of this clause:

The first is It only requires Reasonable Best Efforts to manufacture. There is no guarantee of production.

The second is it only provides for access to vaccine manufactured within the EU. @vonderleyen's demand that @AstraZeneca should divert 75 million doses from the UK has no contractual basis.

The delivery schedule is literally named the "Estimated Delivery Schedule. There is no guarantee offered that it can be met. In fact it states it is for "earliest possible" delivery.

The @vonderleyen threats to sue @AstraZeneca are nothing more than bluster aimed at diverting attention away from the three month delay she and Merkel caused.
bild.de/politik/auslan…

The EU need to calm the aggression, apologise to AstraZeneca. And allow them to continue to make reasonable best efforts for the earliest possible delivery of vaccine.

"AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Vaccine at manufacturing sites within the EU (which, for the purpose of this Section 5.4 only shall include the United Kingdom)" This would allow AstraZeneca to use production capacity in the UK.

But it does not allow for doses contracted to the UK to be diverted.

This ability to include the UK does not apply to clause 5.1 the supply of the Initial Doses which are of course the ones that will be later than the estimated schedule. I'm not sure if this is a drafting error but clause 5.4 only applies to 5.4. Perhaps it was meant apply to 5.

On reading again I get what they're trying to say. Including the UK only applies to manufacturing sites, it is not included in any other reference to the EU. Poor drafting IMO. So AZ could make best reasonable efforts to manufacture doses for the EU in the UK, even Initial Doses

This wouldn't oblige them to breach any existing contracts. I don't believe 13.1 e applies to the UK contract as this pre-existing contract does not impede the fulfilment of the order. In fact it has helped as AZ have ironed out production difficulties over many months in the UK.