5 ms·

I don't understand, where is BBC incorrect here? How would you like them to report on this? EU was months late and they move much slower than other parties in

I don't understand, where is BBC incorrect here? How would you like them to report on this? EU was months late and they move much slower than other parties in the whole process and on top of that they signed agreements with "best effort" clauses instead of hard obligation of vaccine delivery. How is this UK's fault?

DangerousPie 6y ago
Nobody is saying it's the UK's fault, but just because they signed the agreement a few months later doesn't mean that AZ isn't bound to that agreement. There is no "first come first serve" clause in there.
- adrianb 6y ago
  Interesting. How are these contracts supposed to work? In general when I buy something and have to wait, I expect to get it before everyone who buys after me. Not sure how these contracts work.
  - krona 6y ago
    Which is exactly why AZ split the UK/EU supply chain to try avoid such issues entirely (CEOs words.) The contract is vague and nonspecific about commiting UK factories to supply the EU. The whole thing is a parody of Brussels bureaucratism.
    - mrtksn 6y ago
      >The contract is vague and nonspecific about the UK factories supplying the EU. It's not, it's clearly stated that the contract covers the UK facilities. Check article 5.4
      - krona 6y ago
        My interpretation comes from 2 seperate lawyers. Why are they wrong?
        mrtksn 6y ago
        I don't know your lawyers, can't tell. Are they internet lawyers, like on reddit or YouTube or something?
        krona 6y ago
        Unless you're an expert in contract law then your interpretation of "Best Reasonable Efforts" for a pharma company during a global pandemic is less than worthless. As is my own.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    I guess ideally AZ wouldn't enter multiple contracts that conflict with each other...
    - Diggsey 6y ago
      So you're suggesting AZ should never have agreed to supply the EU at all? The contract clearly says they're to make their "best reasonable effort" to satisfy this contract. Breaking previous contracts would be unreasonable. There are so many things the EU could do here that could help: - Provide more resource to AZ to get more facilities up and running. - Offer to sell some of that future ramped up production back to countries like the UK in exchange for getting some vaccines now. - Expedite the approval process of other vaccines. - Allow member states to negotiate indepently. What did they choose to do? Raid the EU vaccine production facilties, and threaten legal action against the very company trying to supply them the vaccine. Like yeah, that's really going to help people. The UK government directly paid for the research and development of the AZ vaccine, and paid for the manufacturing facilities in the UK to be built, when there was a lot of pressure to simply partner with US firms. Where was the EU when this was happening? Why didn't the EU take it upon themselves to do the same thing? The presumptiveness of the EU to dictate that AZ should redirect UK vaccines to the EU is astounding.
      - Silhouette 6y ago
        The contract clearly says they're to make their "best reasonable effort" to satisfy this contract. Breaking previous contracts would be unreasonable. To me reading the contract as a non-lawyer, the BRE conditions felt like game, set and match to AZ. For one thing, the definition of "best reasonable efforts" does seem to be ambiguous, but evidently it's intended to relate to what a business comparable to AZ would be expected to do. It seems unreasonable to expect that a large, multinational business manufacturing essential drugs during a public health crisis would knowingly and deliberately breach an existing contract to supply a fixed number of doses on a fixed schedule to another party, which is what AZ reportedly has with the UK. On top of that, there is the discrepancy between 5.1 and 5.4. The latter says the UK counts as "within the EU" while talking about manufacturing at sites located within the EU, but it also explicitly says the inclusion of the UK is only for that specific clause. Clause 5.1 is specifically about the initial doses and requires AZ to use its BREs to manufacture the initial doses within the EU with no such including-the-UK qualifier. So it appears that, contractually, AZ is actively required to make BRE to manufacture the initial doses for the EU not in the UK, and in any case, unless there is something very strange hidden in the censored wording, the obligations relating to delivery are also covered by a BRE qualifier. Presumably this will all end up being decided in court, probably long after it really matters for anything other than financial compensation, but on a first reading by this layperson, it does look like AZ have the stronger case here.
- Neil44 6y ago
  The significance of the earlier commitment from the UK is that UK manufacturing of the vaccine is now 3 months more mature than the EU plant. It’s not a legal significance but a practical and moral one.
- timellis-smith 6y ago
  Yes there was. Section 6.2 of the contract: "To the extent that Astra Zeneca's performance under this Agreement is impeded by any such competing agreements, AstraZeneca shall not be deemed in breach of this Agreement as a result of any such delay due to the aforementioned competing agreement(s). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9201267/EU-vaccine-Europe-negotiating-Novavax-jabs-UK-bought-five-months-ago.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9201267/EU-vaccine-...
Scarblac 6y ago
The EU claims there are no best effort clauses, which is why they asked AZ to make this public. We'll find out. The rest of your comment makes OP's point: this is a contract dispute. Why is it relevant when the UK signed their contract, or that the EU hadn't approved the virus yet? Such comments only serve to make UK citizens angry at the EU.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > EU claims there are no best effort clauses, which is why they asked AZ to make this public. We'll find out Best Reasonable Efforts are defined on page 3 of this post. "The activities and degree of effort that a company of a similar size and with similarly-sized infrastructure and similar resources as AstraZeneca would undertake or use in the development and manufacture of a Vaccine..." Couple problems: - "Development and manufacture" doesn't include distribution. - AstraZeneca has practically zero track record in vaccines. "Similar resources" is a potential out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- the-dude 6y ago
  > the EU hadn't approved the virus We are working on that!
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    UK had two variants until EU approves one!
noncoml 6y ago
I don't think I implied that UK is in fault, or that EU is in the right here. The problem, in my opinion, is with the way the report it, the time they spend on it and the demonization of the EU. Even if EU is 100% in the wrong, do they need to spend half their air-time covering a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU, arguing how the EU is unreasonable and pretty much the monster that tries to steal the vaccines from the UK people? My disappointment is the with the division, polarization and demonization of the EU they are promoting. After listening to that rhetoric with my (British) wife for 10 minutes straight, I heard heard saying "yeah, fuck these EU assholes".
- mike-cardwell 6y ago
  That's how you get eyeballs.
  - adimitrov 6y ago
    The BBC is publicly funded. The entire idea behind publicly funded news and broadcast is that they shouldn't care about eyeballs, singe they don't need and money.
    - mike-cardwell 6y ago
      The BBC is staffed by humans. Humans who want their programming to be popular and watched widely. If people stopped watching BBC news, you better believe they'd make changes to reverse that, whatever it takes. Their incentives are just different.
    - austhrow743 6y ago
      If no one was watching or reading I can't imagine they wouldn't start facing political pushback as a waste of money. Every entities existence is strengthened by usefulness, profit seeking or otherwise.
- string 6y ago
  > Even if EU is 100% in the wrong, do they need to spend half their air-time covering a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU, arguing how the EU is unreasonable and pretty much the monster that tries to steal the vaccines from the UK people? Sounds reasonable. The EU are threatening to block exports of vaccines. It's a huge story over here because people are rightly concerned, especially given the huge number of deaths we've bad, and it's incredibly relevant because it's our first major of contention with the EU after the transition period. If you want to place the blame for increasing divisions, maybe try starting with the organisation who are threatening a trade war during a global pandemic.
barrkel 6y ago
The best effort relates to setting up the manufacturing of the vaccine, not distributing it. See e.g. https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-about-the-best-efforts-clause-in-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-agreement/ https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-a... There's no doubt the UK has been nimble and reasonably effective on the vaccine front (as we all know, the EU is a very mixed bag by construction); just as well since it has been dreadful on the mortality front. The UK commentariat is a little bit shocked, but it is to be expected - it's out of the club. There will be more consequences later. I, for one, am leaving the UK with my family.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Distribution is critical. AZ is only responsible for the deliveries to the national hubs. After that, it's up to the memeber staes. The contract is extremely thin on distribution, generally on supply chain and logistics. These two parts being the most critical aspects, after develpment and certification, makes this lack of details a real problem.

DangerousPie 6y ago

Nobody is saying it's the UK's fault, but just because they signed the agreement a few months later doesn't mean that AZ isn't bound to that agreement. There is no "first come first serve" clause in there.

adrianb 6y ago
Interesting. How are these contracts supposed to work? In general when I buy something and have to wait, I expect to get it before everyone who buys after me. Not sure how these contracts work.
- krona 6y ago
  Which is exactly why AZ split the UK/EU supply chain to try avoid such issues entirely (CEOs words.) The contract is vague and nonspecific about commiting UK factories to supply the EU. The whole thing is a parody of Brussels bureaucratism.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    >The contract is vague and nonspecific about the UK factories supplying the EU. It's not, it's clearly stated that the contract covers the UK facilities. Check article 5.4
    - krona 6y ago
      My interpretation comes from 2 seperate lawyers. Why are they wrong?
      - mrtksn 6y ago
        I don't know your lawyers, can't tell. Are they internet lawyers, like on reddit or YouTube or something?
        krona 6y ago
        Unless you're an expert in contract law then your interpretation of "Best Reasonable Efforts" for a pharma company during a global pandemic is less than worthless. As is my own.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I guess ideally AZ wouldn't enter multiple contracts that conflict with each other...
  - Diggsey 6y ago
    So you're suggesting AZ should never have agreed to supply the EU at all? The contract clearly says they're to make their "best reasonable effort" to satisfy this contract. Breaking previous contracts would be unreasonable. There are so many things the EU could do here that could help: - Provide more resource to AZ to get more facilities up and running. - Offer to sell some of that future ramped up production back to countries like the UK in exchange for getting some vaccines now. - Expedite the approval process of other vaccines. - Allow member states to negotiate indepently. What did they choose to do? Raid the EU vaccine production facilties, and threaten legal action against the very company trying to supply them the vaccine. Like yeah, that's really going to help people. The UK government directly paid for the research and development of the AZ vaccine, and paid for the manufacturing facilities in the UK to be built, when there was a lot of pressure to simply partner with US firms. Where was the EU when this was happening? Why didn't the EU take it upon themselves to do the same thing? The presumptiveness of the EU to dictate that AZ should redirect UK vaccines to the EU is astounding.
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      The contract clearly says they're to make their "best reasonable effort" to satisfy this contract. Breaking previous contracts would be unreasonable. To me reading the contract as a non-lawyer, the BRE conditions felt like game, set and match to AZ. For one thing, the definition of "best reasonable efforts" does seem to be ambiguous, but evidently it's intended to relate to what a business comparable to AZ would be expected to do. It seems unreasonable to expect that a large, multinational business manufacturing essential drugs during a public health crisis would knowingly and deliberately breach an existing contract to supply a fixed number of doses on a fixed schedule to another party, which is what AZ reportedly has with the UK. On top of that, there is the discrepancy between 5.1 and 5.4. The latter says the UK counts as "within the EU" while talking about manufacturing at sites located within the EU, but it also explicitly says the inclusion of the UK is only for that specific clause. Clause 5.1 is specifically about the initial doses and requires AZ to use its BREs to manufacture the initial doses within the EU with no such including-the-UK qualifier. So it appears that, contractually, AZ is actively required to make BRE to manufacture the initial doses for the EU not in the UK, and in any case, unless there is something very strange hidden in the censored wording, the obligations relating to delivery are also covered by a BRE qualifier. Presumably this will all end up being decided in court, probably long after it really matters for anything other than financial compensation, but on a first reading by this layperson, it does look like AZ have the stronger case here.
Neil44 6y ago
The significance of the earlier commitment from the UK is that UK manufacturing of the vaccine is now 3 months more mature than the EU plant. It’s not a legal significance but a practical and moral one.
timellis-smith 6y ago
Yes there was. Section 6.2 of the contract: "To the extent that Astra Zeneca's performance under this Agreement is impeded by any such competing agreements, AstraZeneca shall not be deemed in breach of this Agreement as a result of any such delay due to the aforementioned competing agreement(s). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9201267/EU-vaccine-Europe-negotiating-Novavax-jabs-UK-bought-five-months-ago.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9201267/EU-vaccine-...

Scarblac 6y ago

The EU claims there are no best effort clauses, which is why they asked AZ to make this public. We'll find out. The rest of your comment makes OP's point: this is a contract dispute. Why is it relevant when the UK signed their contract, or that the EU hadn't approved the virus yet? Such comments only serve to make UK citizens angry at the EU.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> EU claims there are no best effort clauses, which is why they asked AZ to make this public. We'll find out Best Reasonable Efforts are defined on page 3 of this post. "The activities and degree of effort that a company of a similar size and with similarly-sized infrastructure and similar resources as AstraZeneca would undertake or use in the development and manufacture of a Vaccine..." Couple problems: - "Development and manufacture" doesn't include distribution. - AstraZeneca has practically zero track record in vaccines. "Similar resources" is a potential out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
the-dude 6y ago
> the EU hadn't approved the virus We are working on that!
- mrtksn 6y ago
  UK had two variants until EU approves one!

noncoml 6y ago

I don't think I implied that UK is in fault, or that EU is in the right here. The problem, in my opinion, is with the way the report it, the time they spend on it and the demonization of the EU. Even if EU is 100% in the wrong, do they need to spend half their air-time covering a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU, arguing how the EU is unreasonable and pretty much the monster that tries to steal the vaccines from the UK people? My disappointment is the with the division, polarization and demonization of the EU they are promoting. After listening to that rhetoric with my (British) wife for 10 minutes straight, I heard heard saying "yeah, fuck these EU assholes".

mike-cardwell 6y ago
That's how you get eyeballs.
- adimitrov 6y ago
  The BBC is publicly funded. The entire idea behind publicly funded news and broadcast is that they shouldn't care about eyeballs, singe they don't need and money.
  - mike-cardwell 6y ago
    The BBC is staffed by humans. Humans who want their programming to be popular and watched widely. If people stopped watching BBC news, you better believe they'd make changes to reverse that, whatever it takes. Their incentives are just different.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    If no one was watching or reading I can't imagine they wouldn't start facing political pushback as a waste of money. Every entities existence is strengthened by usefulness, profit seeking or otherwise.
string 6y ago
> Even if EU is 100% in the wrong, do they need to spend half their air-time covering a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU, arguing how the EU is unreasonable and pretty much the monster that tries to steal the vaccines from the UK people? Sounds reasonable. The EU are threatening to block exports of vaccines. It's a huge story over here because people are rightly concerned, especially given the huge number of deaths we've bad, and it's incredibly relevant because it's our first major of contention with the EU after the transition period. If you want to place the blame for increasing divisions, maybe try starting with the organisation who are threatening a trade war during a global pandemic.

barrkel 6y ago

The best effort relates to setting up the manufacturing of the vaccine, not distributing it. See e.g. https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-about-the-best-efforts-clause-in-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-agreement/ https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-a... There's no doubt the UK has been nimble and reasonably effective on the vaccine front (as we all know, the EU is a very mixed bag by construction); just as well since it has been dreadful on the mortality front. The UK commentariat is a little bit shocked, but it is to be expected - it's out of the club. There will be more consequences later. I, for one, am leaving the UK with my family.

hef19898 6y ago
Distribution is critical. AZ is only responsible for the deliveries to the national hubs. After that, it's up to the memeber staes. The contract is extremely thin on distribution, generally on supply chain and logistics. These two parts being the most critical aspects, after develpment and certification, makes this lack of details a real problem.