While the European Public Prosecutor's Office investigation drags on, Pfizer is acting... in court

A court document obtained by Politico shows that Pfizer, along with its partner BioNTech, opened legal proceedings earlier this year against the government in Budapest over deliveries of the COVID-19 vaccine.

A Pfizer spokesperson confirmed the case to the source, with proceedings currently taking place at the Brussels Court.

According to the cited document, it is about the Viktor Orban government's refusal to pay 60 million euros for 3 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, Hungary notifying the Pfizer company in November 2022 that it does not intend to pay, due to budgetary expenses caused by the conflict in Ukraine.

At the hearing in the first chamber that took place in March 2023, the Belgian judge Thierry Delvaux found that he could not rule only after the simple adversarial debate of the two parties, especially since the Hungarian state disputed the claim of those from Pfizer and registered the litigation before the Francophone Court of First Instance in Brussels, but since then and until now nothing has happened in that file.

In defense of the Pfizer company, its representatives claim in the request addressed to the Belgian court that the non-payment constitutes a violation of the second purchase contract concluded between Pfizer/BioNTech and the European Commission, a contract in which Hungary appears as an EU member state participating in the purchase the Comirnaty vaccine.

Pfizer's lawyers also point out that in a letter addressed to the Hungarian government on September 29, 2022, the company's management wrote: "The advance payment is a condition for the delivery of the vaccines. To facilitate payment, we can exceptionally accept weekly prepayments to guarantee the delivery of the vaccines."

However, on 11 November 2022 the government in Budapest said it could not honor the payment due to the precarious budget situation caused by the conflict in Ukraine and requested Pfizer to reduce the number of doses from 3 million to 150,000, and if the company will not agree, to withdraw the original order of 3 million doses.

Regarding the requests of the Budapest Executive, on November 22, 2023, the Pfizer company responded that Hungary ordered the respective vaccine doses on May 22, 2022, three months after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, an event that apparently was not taken into account at making this order that was to be honored by the pharmaceutical giant in October and November 2022.

Hungary is not the only European state facing a Pfizer lawsuit, with a similar case against Poland.

Regarding the case against the government in Warsaw, the Francophone Court of First Instance in Brussels held, two days ago, a first hearing at the end of which both sides agreed to postpone the trial until January 30, 2024. In this case, Pfizer alleges that Poland unjustifiably refused to accept a delivery of 60 million doses of the anti-Covid 19 vaccine in April 2022. At the time, Warsaw invoked force majeure, i.e. pressure on public finances following an influx of refugees after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. Last month, shortly after Poland's election, Pfizer said it would take Warsaw to court over the failed payment, which the source estimated at around 1.2 billion euros based on reported vaccine prices. The vaccine's co-developer, Germany's BioNTech, also joined the proceedings.

The two cases add to a growing number of legal proceedings related to the EU's pandemic-era vaccine procurement efforts.

We remind you that at the end of last month, former prime minister Florin Cîţu and former ministers of health Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă were put under criminal investigation by DNA prosecutors for abuse of office, due to the purchase in the first quarter of 2021 of a surplus of dozens of anti-Covid 19 vaccine, although the stocks in the warehouses were considerable, a purchase that would have caused the state budget a damage of over 1 billion euros.

We note that in September 2022, the European Public Prosecutor's Office led by Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruţa Kovesi announced that it had opened a criminal case in which investigations are being carried out in rem (ed. - regarding the claimed facts) related to the purchase of anti- Covid 19 contracted from Pfizer by the European Commission, following the negotiations conducted by the president Ursula von der Leyen, but since then and until now there has been no news from the European institution based in Luxembourg about the said case.

At the same time, the Belgian lobbyist Frederic Baldan also opened a criminal case at the end of 2022 against the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for the role she had in mediating the most large EU vaccine contract, for 1.1 billion doses of anti-Covid 19 vaccine, file pending in the Belgian courts.

The American publication New York Times also sued the European Commission because the institution in Brussels refused to reveal the messages exchanged on WhatsApp in March and April 2021 by Ursula von der Leyen with Albert Bourla, the CEO of the Pfizer company.