4 ms·

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. N

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.

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.