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By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS, May 26 (Reuters) - A lawyer for the European Union
accused AstraZeneca on Wednesday of not having even
tried to respect its contract with the 27-nation bloc for the
supply of COVID-19 vaccines and of failing to warn it in time of
large cuts to deliveries.
The EU took the Anglo-Swedish firm to court in April after
the drugmaker said it would aim to deliver only 100 million
doses of its vaccine by the end of June, instead of the 300
million foreseen in the supply contract.
The EU wants the company to deliver at least 120 million
vaccines by the end of June.
"AstraZeneca did not even try to respect the contract," the
EU's lawyer, Rafael Jafferali, told a Brussels court in the
first hearing on the substance of the legal case.
AstraZeneca's lawyer was due to address the court later on
Wednesday. The company has repeatedly said the contract was not
binding as it only committed to make "best reasonable efforts"
in delivering doses.
Jafferali said that principle had not been respected because
the drugmaker had not delivered to the bloc the 50 million doses
produced in factories that are listed in the contract as
suppliers to the EU, including 39 million doses manufactured in
Britain.
The company has said that doses produced in Britain were
reserved under a contract the British government signed with the
University of Oxford, which developed the vaccine.
Jafferali said AstraZeneca had pledged in the EU contract
not to have other engagements that would prevent it from abiding
by the terms of the deal.
The lawyer also said AstraZeneca had failed to communicate
to the EU in a timely manner the magnitude of its supply
problems because it repeatedly sent messages, including
publicly, that it was able to meet its targets, before finally
admitting there were large shortfalls in March.
The company had warned the EU in December of production
problems, but communicated only at the end of January, just
before the start of deliveries, a much larger cut than initially
expected for the first-quarter.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio
Editing by John Chalmers, Kirsten Donovan)
