[Rugoz]

Whatever is reported by a government who refuses to publish its contract citing "national security" can be safely assumed to be false and the exact opposite of what is claimed.

The EU has published her contract and challenged the UK to prove its claims by supplying its own.

As long as the UK refuses to be transparent there can only be one safe conclusion especially in the face of overwhelming evidence like those 29 million vaccines uncovered in the EU.

Contractual disputes are resolved by courts and not by the public based on leaked parts of the contracts. The EU is free to sue AZ, but something tells me such a lawsuit would go exactly nowhere.

Whatever. This is not news anymore. It has been abundantly clear that UK is not a good faith partner and that EU can't trust the UK anymore. Appropriate steps will be taken in regards to UK-EU relationship.

The EU is equally untrustworthy.

[noemon]

:roll: Contractual disputes are resolved by courts and not by the public based on leaked parts of the contracts. The EU is free to sue AZ, but something tells me such a lawsuit would go exactly nowhere.

Another ridiculous argument that is a factual lie:

https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-europe-commission-contract-astrazeneca-ties-hands-lawsuits/

The contract does not permit lawsuits.

The UK's contract is the only political argument that exists regarding this dispute. As the UK itself politicised its own contract with AZ as "superior to the EU's", the only thing to do would be to prove the UK's claims of superiority by publishing it.

Hiding it away under 'national security' can only be because these "contractual obligations" that the UK has been harping on for months do not actually exist.

The bullshit have been off for a while now.

[Rugoz]

The contract does not permit lawsuits.

Meaning the delivery schedule is for AZ to choose and the EU can do jack shit about it, other than resorting to vaccine nationalism, which seems to be the last refuge of the incompetent. Fits well into Von der Leyen's career.

[wat0n]

What was the EC thinking when signing that contract?

[noemon]

What was the EC thinking when signing that contract?

All these contracts are like that because the contract was made even before the product existed. Companies cannot accept liability for a product they do not have.

Meaning the delivery schedule is for AZ to choose and the EU can do jack shit about it,

Meaning that AZ will have to do better than simply claiming that the UK's contract is superior without publishing that "superiority".

[wat0n]

All these contracts are like that because the contract was made even before the product existed. Companies cannot accept liability for a product they do not have.

But then, you protect yourself through other clauses for when they already do have the product.

[Rugoz]

All these contracts are like that

Source needed.

Meaning that AZ will have to do better than simply claiming that the UK's contract is superior without publishing that "superiority".

Why? Legally it is not obliged to do anything.

[noemon]

Source needed.

UK contract also based on "best effort".

You still need to provide evidence that the UK's contract is superior to the EU's.

Why? Legally it is not obliged to do anything.

AZ and the UK are the ones openly claiming the UK's contract is "superior", they can not simply assert it but demonstrate it.

Sure, they are not legally obliged to but neither am I obliged to take them at their word and nor is anybody else for that matter.

It is precisely this secrecy that shows to me that they are serial liars.

But then, you protect yourself through other clauses for when they already do have the product.

That is why the EU is checking AZ plants in Europe and found 29 million vaccines sitting around while the plant from which they originated is supposedly unready and has been "on track" for a few months now to supply to the EU as contractually required.

Because with evidence it can take AZ to court that it is doing something different than what she is on record on supposedly doing.

Now the UK wants to talk for a "win-win".

[Rugoz]

You still need to provide evidence that the UK's contract is superior to the EU's.

How the UK gained an edge with AstraZeneca’s vaccine commitments
A comparison of the UK and EU contracts shows that London’s deal has extra teeth.

Two contracts, two different legal systems, but one goal: Getting doses of a life-saving vaccine to people as quickly as possible.

Just how the U.K. has secured doses more quickly than the EU from pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been a matter of intense scrutiny. Some clues can be found in comparing the contract that AstraZeneca signed with London to the one it inked with Brussels.

On the whole, the contracts appear roughly the same when it comes to their language and their tone, says Sébastien De Rey, a contract law specialist at Leuven University. But there's one key difference, he notes: “The U.K. contract is, on some specific points, more detailed."

The level of specificity is partially due to the legal systems they're based on. The U.K. contract is written in English law, which will judge whether both parties delivered the goods based on the exact wording of the contract. The EU contract is written in Belgian law, which focuses on whether both parties tried their best to deliver the goods and acted in good faith.

It's these extra details that give the U.K. more leverage to ensure its contract is delivered effectively. While both contracts say all parties will make their “best reasonable effort” to deliver the vaccine, the U.K. government is clearer in asserting its oversight of the agreement.

This core difference, according to a lawyer familiar with the development of the U.K. text, can be chalked up to the fact that the contract sealed with London was written by people with significant experience of purchasing agreements, specifically drug-buying deals. The European Commission’s contract, by contrast, shows a lack of commercial common sense, in the lawyer’s view.

The starkest example of this difference is a clause in the U.K. contract stating that if any party tries to force or persuade AstraZeneca or its subcontractors to do anything that could hold up the supply of the vaccine doses, the government may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses — although these are largely redacted.

The EU, on the other hand, can only withhold payments until the company delivers the goods, or until it helps find more producers to make the vaccine. And as POLITICO reported last week, the non-redacted version of the contract shows that the EU also waived its right to sue AstraZeneca in the event of delivery delays.

Furthermore, officials with knowledge of the U.K. contract say the British government was a more active participant in the manufacturing of the home-grown vaccine — even though the U.K. contract was signed just a day after the one with the EU. This aggressive approach gave London a lead in securing AstraZeneca's doses.

“In sum, the balance of power tilts notably towards the U.K.,” senior MEP and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt wrote in a post Friday. “Since the outcome of this particular contract has led to an enormous amount of public distrust, both the Commision [sic] and AstraZeneca have a lot of explaining to do.”

Stronger supply chains
The U.K. contract makes it clear that London had thought through the entire Oxford/AstraZeneca supply chain, rather than just focusing on the delivery of the vaccines. The EU, by comparison, was more unclear, even as to where its plants would be.

The U.K. contract contains a commitment by AstraZeneca that the British supply chain “will be appropriate and sufficient” for the supply of the doses the U.K. purchased. London understood, then, that if the supply chain were not “sufficient,” the drug company would be on the hook for meeting any shortfall from somewhere else, according to a person familiar with the U.K. contract’s development.

The British contract also indicates the deal would cover “other manufacturing facilities in Europe” in the event that the European Medicines Agency approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine before British regulators after the Brexit transition period.

It didn’t specify what would happen if approval came first in the U.K., which is in fact what happened. But the U.K. Task Force told journalists in December that it would get vaccines from Germany and the Netherlands to meet any potential shortages on the island ahead of the U.K.’s earlier approval.

By contrast, the EU’s contract basically states that AstraZeneca will only make its "best reasonable efforts" to supply and manufacture the vaccines in the EU, which in the contract includes the U.K. manufacturing sites. In the full version of the contract and order form, the three British plants — as well as a Dutch and German subcontractor that haven't been used for the EU doses — are included in the EU's supply chain. The company hasn't used the U.K. doses to fix the shortage of EU supply.

Instead, AstraZeneca has largely relied on a Belgian subcontractor, Thermo Fisher Scientific (originally Novasep), to supply the EU with drug substance. It has also gotten some doses from a U.S. plant in Maryland.

More broadly, the specifics of the EU’s plants have been a subject of confusion. For example, the Commission's published contract said the EU would get drug substance from “I\IL.” When a redacted version was published on January 29, the Commission at first kept on insisting that this referred to Italy and Ireland. It later turned out to be a copy error that should have said “NL,” for the Netherlands, according to Dutch broadcaster NOS.

Earlier timelines
As with supply chains, the timeline is also disputed. But it does appear that the U.K. got an earlier start on the ground — even though that’s not clear on paper.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot made the argument that the U.K. had better vaccine supply because the U.K. signed an agreement for vaccines months earlier than the EU. Formally, this isn’t true: The U.K. contract was signed on August 28, while the EU’s was signed a day earlier on August 27.

However, the key lies in an earlier agreement that AstraZeneca made back in May with the U.K., which was a binding deal establishing “the development of a dedicated supply chain for the U.K.,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said.

One official close to the U.K. contract said the agreement began as an email in April from the U.K. government saying it would provide £65 million to help the University of Oxford execute its production plan. It later evolved into a fully-fledged contract between the government and the British-Swedish company, which also might explain why it took until August for the contract to be signed.

Most important, however, is that it meant that the British government was “effectively a major shareholder” in the jab’s development as early as April. After Oxford and AstraZeneca agreed to team up at the end of April, for example, the British government filled seats on Oxford-AstraZeneca joint liaison committees.

“Protecting the U.K.‘s supply was a central objective ... as that was being negotiated from April onwards,” the official said. Even though this isn't explicitly stated in the contract, the official said that the government’s role in the early stages of the vaccine meant “there is absolutely no way that AstraZeneca would have been able to enter a contract which gave away equal priority of access to the U.K. doses.”

This British supply was therefore already secured by the time four EU countries — Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy — signed an agreement in June to obtain up to 300 million doses of the vaccines. The countries’ deal at the time was a fairly bare-bones agreement, and it’s unclear whether it established a European supply chain, but over the summer it was transferred into the formal purchasing agreement managed by the Commission.

The Commission wouldn't comment this week on the publication of the U.K.'s AstraZeneca contract, but it has underscored that the EU's agreement provided money — up to €336 million — to the company to ramp up manufacturing of vaccines at-risk for the bloc.

"We did not invest in the company on the assumption that they would not be able to pre-produce," a Commission official wrote in an email. “Investing and ramping up pre-production capacity was one of the premises of our agreements."

"There are clear delivery quantities, both for December of last year as well as the coming quarters for this year," the official added.

Stronger enforceability
A further difference is that the British and Belgian legal systems have different views of how these contracts should be delivered and adjudicated if issues arise.

Many companies choose the U.K. for contracts involving the purchase of goods or other agreements that deal with a point of sale. That’s because English law is an effective route for suing a company if it doesn’t deliver goods in time. The U.K. contract is testament to that advantage, lawyers said.

English contract law also has much more literal interpretation — what’s on paper is what counts, lawyers say. By contrast, Belgian law, which the Commission chose for its contract, takes a wider view that includes the context a contract’s written in and the good intentions of both parties. The court system in Belgium also tends to reach a decision in a legal dispute far more slowly than its English counterpart.

That said, while the EU’s contract may be less precise, it can still carry weight in a court of law, De Rey said. It's more detailed in laying out what it means by best reasonable efforts, he added, pointing to the preamble of the EU contract, which goes into great detail about the great need for vaccines during the pandemic.

"In the end, it will always come back to this 'best reasonable efforts' and the interpretation of this," he said. "But the standard of these 'best reasonable efforts' is quite high."

More micromanagment
The U.K. contract is also more clear in how it will monitor the delivery of the doses, as well as what happens if the company doesn't come through.

Although the delivery schedule itself is redacted, the U.K. contract clearly states that AstraZeneca shall notify the British government about any changes to the schedule and use its “Best Reasonable Efforts to keep as close to the original” delivery schedule. The company also has 30 days to notify the U.K. ahead of its delivery about the number of doses it should expect.

Once that happens, “AstraZeneca may not adjust the Delivery Schedule without the prior consent” of the British government.

An exception: AstraZeneca isn't in violation if there's a “minor variance” to the delivery schedules, up to five business days, “due to the unpredictable nature of the Manufacturing of the Products” — as long as the U.K. is notified within a reasonable timeframe.

The EU contract, by contrast, doesn't go into this level of detail about notification when manufacturing plans change. But it does have another remedy in the Belgian system, De Rey explains: If a company is in breach of a contract, the other party can appoint another producer to do the job at the expense of the company in breach.

Indeed, the Commission's contract says it or EU countries can present plans to boost production and "AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts" to contact producers “to increase the available manufacturing capacity within the EU," it states.

The problem with this provision, however, is it doesn't ensure a rapid timeline, which is crucial amid a global race to vaccinate populations.

Furthermore, the U.K. contract gave more clear powers to managers on the ground in executing and validating the contract, while the EU contract focused more on ensuring equitable distribution of the vaccines between each EU country.

The EU contract also says the Commission and EU countries should use their “Best Reasonable Efforts” to help AstraZeneca secure enough drug substance, vials and other materials to produce its vaccines, and the company should report to the Commission in “regular intervals” on whether it can meet its supply promises. AstraZeneca will "promptly notify the Commission if it encounters difficulties in this regard that place at significant risk AstraZeneca’s ability to manufacture or sell the Vaccine Doses as contemplated by this Agreement," it reads.

What this meant on the ground: When AstraZeneca faced supply issues at the start of 2021, it gave the EU little notice. It informed the Commission that the EU would receive at least 70 million fewer doses in the first quarter of 2021 just a week ahead of the European Medicines Agency’s expected approval date. The company still has not updated the EU on what it can provide them in the second quarter of the year.

To be sure, the EU contract says Brussels may suspend payments if AstraZeneca fails to deliver, and it specifically states that AstraZeneca may not have any impending contracts that would hinder its ability to supply the EU. But it also states that if AstraZeneca’s performance is “impeded by any such competing agreements, AstraZeneca shall not be deemed in breach” of its agreement with the EU.

And in the end, the EU waived its right to take AstraZeneca to court if there are delivery delays.

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key ... contracts/

[Prosthetic Conscience]

As far as the Indian-made vaccines goes, it's obvious they were not "seized". They were in India, or about to be made in India, and the Serum Institute and the UK government signed a contract for the delivery. I don't "seize" goods from Amazon. We can be sceptical about the claim that it wouldn't affect the delivery to other countries, but if you are, then the "premium paid" explanation is the only credible one. The Serum Institute wouldn't divert doses unless there was something in it for them - money.

You can call it "gazumping" if you want, but I suspect that's a term that isn't known internationally.

The 29 million doses in Italy were always destined for the EU and low-income countries:

AstraZeneca said on Wednesday that some 29 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines found in an inspection at a plant in Italy were destined for the EU and for donations to poorer countries via the COVAX scheme co-led by the World Health Organization.
...
“There are no exports currently planned other than to COVAX countries. There are 13 million doses of vaccine waiting for quality control release to be dispatched to COVAX,” the company said.

The remaining 16 million will be shipped to Europe this month and in April, it said.

Mario Gargiulo, Regional Biologics President for Europe at Catalent, told Reuters that having 29 million doses in the Anagni factory was in line with normal procedure and that the company often had more there.
...
An EU official said some of the doses at the Catalent plant might come from a vaccine factory in the Netherlands run by AstraZeneca’s subcontractor Halix.

The Anagni plant is in charge of bottling AstraZeneca vaccines produced at the Halix factory and also at a plant in Belgium run by subcontractor Thermo Fisher Scientific.

AstraZeneca said that the factory also bottles doses received from outside the EU and to be shipped to COVAX countries.

Both vaccine-making factories in Belgium and the Netherlands are listed in the contract AstraZeneca signed with the EU in August as suppliers to the EU.

However, the Halix factory has not yet been approved in the EU, as AstraZeneca did not submit sufficient data to the EU drugs regulator. It has also not been approved in Britain.

Vaccines produced there cannot be used in the EU until that approval is received, which AstraZeneca and EU officials said they expected in the coming days.

It is unclear why AstraZeneca did not seek earlier approval for the factory. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker declined to comment on that point.

Halix is also listed as a supplier for Britain, which is urging the EU to allow the shipment of doses produced there. Britain has so far exported no AstraZeneca vaccines to the EU, despite two UK plants being listed in the EU contract as suppliers for the bloc.

Halix said it started producing vaccines for the EU in December and has a capacity to produce about 5 million doses per month. The company declined to comment on how many vaccines it had already produced or on their destination.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2BG1HF

There's a lot of hysterical nonsense being said, at the highest levels of government.

[JohnRawls]

What was the EC thinking when signing that contract?

We have the same contract as UK. AZ promised 120 million dozes before Aprill but it is not even close to delivering 30 million. If they were on schedule, we would be ahead of UK. And then we find 29 million doses in Italy all of the sudden scheduled highly likely for UK. Fuck the UK, just block all vaccine exports to UK as retribution.

[B0ycey]

There have been no details of the UK contract revealed to say whether it is more robust/same than the EUs. Astrazenica says it is more robust and I would say that is a good indication. And sources say the EU have wavered their right to sue if supplies are not met. I doubt that is the case with the UK so that is a big factor in everything that is occurring I would say. Late signed contracts are usually worse off and the UK was quick to get them signed.

Besides BoJo basically said yesterday that all this BS was about greed and capitalism, the US seem to have made the same play and I think the EU got caught out. But at the end of the day, the UK is going to have to concede somewhere unless they really do want to play silly buggers and hold back supplies. Because it does make sense to get the EU vaccinated especially as there is talk of getting new variants off them like the SA variant specifically if their roll out doesn't speed up quickly.

This whole saga is why vaccine nationalism is the ultimate clusterfuck.

[wat0n]

We have the same contract as UK. AZ promised 120 million dozes before Aprill but it is not even close to delivering 30 million. If they were on schedule, we would be ahead of UK. And then we find 29 million doses in Italy all of the sudden scheduled highly likely for UK. Fuck the UK, just block all vaccine exports to UK as retribution.

Maybe. But I would not rule out that the contracts are different and that the EC came too late to the party. It's even understandable since it's the first time it has to work in this sort of procurement process.

[ness31]

Noemon might be seeing things from a different perspective as he’s acutely aware as to how the Brits legally steal shit.

[Puffer Fish]

It's not conjecture, it's reality, it's reporting a fact that the UK has seized 10 million vaccine doses from India that were supposed to go to lower-income countries for itself.

I think this all hinges on exactly what "supposed to" means here.

Was there an actual contract? A pledge? An understanding or non-binding agreement? maybe just simply a prior expectation?

The fact that these vaccines happened to be produced in India is still irrelevant from the point of a justice or contract view.

[noemon]

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-the-eu-and-uk-astrazeneca-contracts/

No evidence provided by the article, all the statements made by unnamed "British experts" who can safely be dismissed as worthless.

One thing though stands out in this article. The EU's contract is dated and signed 1 day before the UK's, so there goes another British lie trumpeted in all the media that it's contract was done 3 months earlier than the EU's.

the U.K. contract was signed just a day after the one with the EU.

As far as the Indian-made vaccines goes, it's obvious they were not "seized". They were in India, or about to be made in India, and the Serum Institute and the UK government signed a contract for the delivery. I don't "seize" goods from Amazon. We can be sceptical about the claim that it wouldn't affect the delivery to other countries, but if you are, then the "premium paid" explanation is the only credible one. The Serum Institute wouldn't divert doses unless there was something in it for them - money.

You can call it "gazumping" if you want, but I suspect that's a term that isn't known internationally.

The 29 million doses in Italy were always destined for the EU and low-income countries:

From all the lies said by the British over the past 3 months, the lies that came out of Astrazeneca yesterday when the shipment got discovered are some of the most obvious.

Astrazeneca claimed the vaccines found in Italy were manufactured outside the EU, however the EU discovered them by chasing the trail of the Halix plant which is AZ's ghost plant in the EU that is not even supposed to be ready and hence its inability to provide a single vaccine to the EU to date. After the discovery, Astrazeneca is now telling us, that they were EU vaccines all along, however just 1 day before the discovery and for the entire past week at least Astrazeneca was refusing to tell the EU what's the delivery schedule and when can she expect to get a delivery of vaccines. So many lies have been said over the past weeks from the British that it is almost impossible just to keep up with the lies. For 2 weeks now and more, the Commission has been doing everything to get Astrazeneca and the UK to release vaccines, it was being ceremoniously ignored and ridiculed and now after taking action and catching AZ redhanded by inspecting the ghost plant suddenly these 20 million vaccines were destined for the EU all along and Boris wants to talk for "win-win".

To make it even more obvious, AZ just claimed that vaccines allegedly made outside the EU were destined for the EU, while for the past 3 months now the UK and AZ have been making up excuses as to why 3 out of 4 manufacturing plants in the EU & contracted by the EU have failed to supply a single vaccine to the EU.

Regarding the Indian vaccines, nothing is obvious and in fact anything said in British papers can safely be taken to be a lie.
The obvious things are that the UK is supposed to be supplied with vaccines from UK factories and is instead being supplied with vaccines from the factories of the EU and India while both of them suffer from a massive vaccine shortage so effectively the UK is seizing vaccines made in India and the EU via its specially obscure relationship with Astrazeneca while at the same time religiously refusing to release the contract of that relationship citing "national security" concerns. The dogs' bollocks in other words.

Anyone following this story understands by now that Britain has a special soviet relationship with Astrazeneca which Boris has used to prop his Brexit propaganda with great effect.

Lastly without the UK's contract which is also based on "best efforts" to prove the UK's claims of its alleged "superiority" and it's supply chain from the EU and India(plants explicitly created to supply others and not the UK) everything coming out of the UK can safely be dismissed as blatant lies at this point.

From the 100 million doses AZ has been contracted to deliver by the end of March, she has delivered only 17 million, it's the 25th today and up until yesterday's discovery of the 29 million vaccines in Italy, no update on the delivery had been made despite superhuman efforts made by the EU.

[noemon]

Observe how British media close ranks, let's see headlines dealing with Astrazeneca's major scandal today.

The Guardian



Total silence and serenity, "let's talk about racism instead".
Any pro-British analysis would be ridiculed by its own and any pro-EU or even neutral analysis has been censored.

The Independent, a paper that has closed nationalist ranks with the Telegraph a long time now:



"EU will lose out if she carries on uncovering vaccines, let's 'win-win'."

The Telegraph:



"How dare they Europeans uncover vaccines that were always destined for the poorest countries...shame on them"

Also...

"Nicola Sturgeon is our greatest threat, ever" specially now our anti-European jingoism cannot be sustained for much longer due to adverse after-effects.

"Greed is the best thing and Boris should not be embarrassed for openly praising greed for the UK's vaccine success, despite the public money and the "not for profit" claim we have been evidently falsely trumpeting about AZ's vaccines being supplied to the world."

And last but not least,

"the French are 2 faced cunts".

All ye need to know.

EDIT: And the BBC:



Irrelevant.

[Potemkin]

Lol @ The Torygraph

[Prosthetic Conscience]

@noemon, "the dogs' bollocks" means something good.

dog's bollocks, the n British
from Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (Bloomsbury)
a superlative thing, situation, etc. This widespread vulgarism was given wider currency by its use in Viz comic from the early 1990s, and its first broadcast use in the TV comedy series Hale and Pace in 1997

That's probably the most informative thing in this whole thread. So much hysteria, so much paranoia, so little point.

[noemon]

That's probably the most informative thing in this whole thread. So much hysteria, so much paranoia,

This thread contains more information, less hysteria and less paranoia that all of the British articles on the subject combined.

so little point.

What is your point?