3 ms·
This is actually a fairly standard contract. The poster on twitter is trying to show Pfizer as some sort of evil monster... they're not, although they are a mo
by Accujack 5y ago
This is actually a fairly standard contract. The poster on twitter is trying to show Pfizer as some sort of evil monster... they're not, although they are a modern multinational corporation, not a public service organization.
Implying that Pfizer should be charging the same amount per dose to everyone in every quantity is silly. Pfizer is a corporation, they exist to make money. The fact of the pandemic doesn't change that. They're free to make any contract they can for any amount and any terms allowed in that country where the contract is written.
They charge more to countries they can get to pay more, as expected. All the contract language that seems controlling, predatory, and "evil" is mostly just standard clauses to avoid issues that have happened with contracts in the past - you can more or less identify what some other company/companies did to cause each clause just by reading them.
Also note that the actual effect of the contract is a combination of the contract and the laws of the nation or organization under which the contract is written, so a nation having badly written laws might be a real problem.
Some nations might have (for example) a pharma law that says "If product is returned in quantity that is a significant fraction of the order, then the purchaser is entitled to a prorated refund for the quantity returned".
Without a more detailed law limiting how this can be applied, Pfizer has to put a no-returns clause in the contract in order to make it worthwhile to even make the sale.
Otherwise, it might be possible for the purchaser to e.g. order extra doses to be sure they get enough or for PR reasons, then return the (expired) doses to Pfizer later on and force Pfizer to return some money even months later, also sticking Pfizer with useless vaccine at the same time and the need (extra cost) to safely dispose of it.
I get the feeling that the poster trying to imply that Pfizer is attempting to hide the contract because it's evil has very little experience with international sales contracts.
- version_five 5y agoYeah when I first read the Twitter thread, my first thought was that this is someone who has never seen a commercial contract before. It's easy to get caught up in the boilerplate as if its something malicious when it's really just standard legal wording (which does try to capture maximum benefit for the company, but not with some evil ulterior motive beyond regular commercial terms)