UK Politics: Oh Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

[Pebble thats Stubby]

When it comes to our vaccination priority list, there is right now a push to vaccinate all teachers right after all the over 70 year olds.

I get that this would help teacher not get covid and thus able to continue to teach in person.  I get this.  but Covid will still spread in schools via the children.  and right now the vaccine is not approved for children.  and what makes teachers more important than supermarket workers?  at least teachers although exposed to a large amount of children should be the same children in a much more controlled environment.  that person at the tills has to interact with lots of different people every single day.

 

also his will effect and slow the rate the rest of the 50-69 year olds get the vaccine and this will impact how many end up in hospital.  the first list is all about who is most vulnerable.  if we change the oder to who is most exposed (which there is an argument for) I'm not sure Teachers make the top of the list, and you will need to consider every occupation, this may make the vaccination process unclear and perceived as unfair.

[JoannaL]

38 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Why?

 

Because that would be an easy and most logical explanation:

 

EU : You cut our supply but not the supply of other customers?!

AZ: No, you have a contract with AZ-EU ,we cannot deliver. The plants in the UK belong to AZ-UK, a different company.

EU: ok, bad luck

- no row , everyone not happy but content -

[ljkeane]

8 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

Because that would be an easy and most logical explanation:

Firstly we don't actually know what exactly was said in the meeting with the EU or what the EU would accept as an explanation. I doubt Astrazeneca have no legal justification at all for the choices they're making. They seem remarkably unconcerned if it was ironclad that they're supposed to be making deliveries from their UK plants to the EU.

Secondly in terms of public statements they've made they've said they set up different supply chains for the UK's order and the EU's order. I've got no idea if they set up subsidiary companies to do that but going into that sort of detail in a public statement would strike me as a little odd.

[JoannaL]

17 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Firstly we don't actually know what exactly was said in the meeting with the EU or what the EU would accept as an explanation. I doubt Astrazeneca have no legal justification at all for the choices they're making. They seem remarkably unconcerned if it was ironclad that they're supposed to be making deliveries from their UK plants to the EU.

Secondly in terms of public statements they've made they've said they set up different supply chains for the UK's order and the EU's order. I've got no idea if they set up subsidiary companies to do that but going into that sort of detail in a public statement would strike me as a little odd.

You are right, we do not know what was said and whats in the contract. But it is not so easy and clear cut as two companies, because AZ would have no problem to argue that. It all comes down to what is in the contract and it is the EU who want to publish it not AZ.

[Heartofice]

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/curevac_-_redacted_advance_purchase_agreement_0.pdf
Here is an example of another EU contract where 'reasonable best effort' is described as:

Quote

'a reasonable degree of best effort to accomplish a given task, acknowledging … the timely availability of raw materials, inventories and liquid funds; yield of process; the … contractor's commitments to other purchasers of the Product … and any other currently unknown factors which may delay or render impossible, contractor's successful completion of the particular task'

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

31 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

You are right, we do not know what was said and whats in the contract. But it is not so easy and clear cut as two companies, because AZ would have no problem to argue that. It all comes down to what is in the contract and it is the EU who want to publish it not AZ.

I am not sure, but isn't primarily EU parliament pushing for the publication. The EU commission is somewhat silent on that matter. I suspect the EU parliament might want to have a talk with members of the commission after that. As far AZ is concerned, I still think they'll have some explaining to do why they sign a contract in december promising the delivery of 80m vaccine shots by the end of the first quarter (best endeavour or not), and then row back a few weeks later claiming they will only be able to deliver 40% of that. There's at least some suspicion of bad faith on AZ's part in order, and their explanations about production problems/bottlenecks don't seem to be terribly convincing.

[Fragile Bird]

A lot of you seem to have strange ideas about supply contracts. If the UK and AZ signed a contract that says the first 100 M doses manufactured in the UK go to the UK, those doses are not available to the EU for purchase, no matter how late delivery is to the EU. I've already mentioned that Trump nailed down the first 100 M doses manufactured in the US by Pfizer, and how Canada is missing our delivery this week because our supply comes from Belgium. The 100 M in the US are not open for re-direction to Canada because the Belgium plant is being expanded.

If the EU wants some of the doses scheduled for the UK, the EU needs to negotiate that with the UK government.

[Filippa Eilhart]

no, the idea is that the EU doesn't care about AZ's contract with the UK, it only cares about its own contract.

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I am not sure, but isn't primarily EU parliament pushing for the publication. 

No.  The Commission has asked to publish the contract.  See here.

You mention December?  The contract was signed in August (although provisionally agreed in June).  Although maybe Astrazeneca clarified the timing of deliveries in December?

4 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Not really. At the start of December the EU was 2 months away from signing off on the vaccine and wasn't anywhere near receiving deliveries of it. It was hardly a secret this happened. That's not quite the same thing as diverting supplies already intended for use somewhere else.

Maybe that is what Loge meant but if you read what he actually said.  "Well the EU's accusation is that AstraZeneca shipped vaccine from their EU plants to the UK. Of course, they haven't presented proof yet".  Clearly AstraZeneca did ship the vaccine from EU plants. 

But your point does raise another question.  Were the UK plants 100% dedicated to the UK but the EU plants not dedicated to the EU?  When does it become "required" for the vaccine to remain in the EU?  Approval day?  Today?  Last week?

I'm sure the EU would have being fine if all vaccines remained in the EU until approval day.  But that doesn't seem to have happened.

Which leads us back to the contracts.   We can argue this forever but its all about the contracts.

3 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I doubt Astrazeneca have no legal justification at all for the choices they're making.

I don't think Joanna or myself have suggested they have no legal justification.  Its more that others have suggested that the EU have none.  As I said, I think Astrazeneca made a mess of their contracts, signing two contradictory ones.  Are they unconcerned?  I'm sure whatever they say publicly is vetted by a room full of lawyers.  They are definitely skating on thin ice.

This mentions that they have offered to bring forward some deliveries but I don't know what that means.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Here is an example of another EU contract where 'reasonable best effort' is described as:

As others have said.  I don't think this definition matters.  All contracts must have something like this.

[ljkeane]

34 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Which leads us back to the contracts.   We can argue this forever but its all about the contracts.

I don't think Joanna or myself have suggested they have no legal justification.  Its more that others have suggested that the EU have none.  As I said, I think Astrazeneca made a mess of their contracts, signing two contradictory ones.  Are they unconcerned?  I'm sure whatever they say publicly is vetted by a room full of lawyers.  They are definitely skating on thin ice.

I think the most relevant thing anyone has posted on this subject is HOI linking to the Curevac advance purchase agreement. I'd say it's reasonable to expect Astrazeneca's is probably substantially similar. I can't think why they'd have wildly different agreements with different suppliers. You should probably read it.

I'm not a lawyer but my reading of it is that Astrazeneca probably aren't skating on particularly thin ice if they have a similar contract. You've accused me being overly generous to Astrazeneca a few times but I have to say I think you're being overly generous to the European Commission. Your baseline assumption seems to be that the EU must have a really solid contract with their suppliers but I have to say my reading of, Curevac's contract at least, is that it's pretty heavily weighted towards the pharmaceutical company.

[john]

But why would the UK have a different contract with AZ than the EU? If we’re speculating that supply depends on such things as obligations to other customers, then the situation with the UK is relevant to the EU AZ contract. Not that it makes much difference (other than in contract violation terms) given the amount of vaccine the EU needs, I don’t see how diverting some of the UK’s supply is going to help anybody.

[ljkeane]

28 minutes ago, john said:

But why would the UK have a different contract with AZ than the EU?

They might not of course. But it does seem that the UK's been expecting the majority of it's supply of Astrazeneca's vaccine to be supplied by the plants in the UK for some time (they were certainly referring to it back in December) and Astrazeneca seems to be sticking to that in the face of some pressure. I think it's reasonable to suspect that the UK's got something in it's contract giving it priority access up to a certain amount to the vaccine manufactured in the UK. If that's not the case I'd say Astrazeneca probably is on thinner ice.

ETA: I would say that Gove was very firm today that the UK would be receiving the 'planned, paid for and scheduled' deliveries. He waffled a bit when asked whether any vaccine was going to be exported to the EU. So I don't think it's a case of the UK just gets anything produced in the UK. If there's a surplus beyond what the UK has been promised I'd expect that will be sent to the EU.

[Padraig]

23 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I think it's reasonable to suspect that the UK's got something in it's contract giving it priority access up to a certain amount to the vaccine manufactured in the UK.

This is what I have been saying.  The UK probably does have something like that in its contract.   If you missed that point, I can see why you'd think I was being generous.

But what happens if there is no mention of this priority in the EU contract?  They have basically sold the same thing to two different countries.  Something like: 

1) We are going to supply 10m vaccines to the EU in February from 4 factories in EU/UK, 2m to the UK from the 2 UK factories.   

2) Oopsy, we've issues with the EU factories. 

3) We are now going to supply 4m to the EU and 2m to the UK.  The UK contract takes precedence because "mumble incoherently"

Does that make sense?

I'm not saying that the EU has the better case since we can't compare the EU and UK contracts.  But i'm saying that there exists a reasonable case based on the information out there.  When new information is released we can revise our opinions.

PS: I'm making up the numbers above.  Just thought it would be clearer with numbers.

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, Padraig said:

This is what I have been saying.  The UK probably does have something like that in its contract.   If you missed that point, I can see why you'd think I was being generous.

But what happens if there is no mention of this priority in the EU contract?  They have basically sold the same thing to two different countries.  Something like:

Like I said, you should really read Curevac's advanced purchase agreement.

The EU Comissioner Stella Kyriakides said that it's not 'first come first served' which is true nothing in the EU's agreement with Curvevac gives priority based on when contracts were signed. The relevant bit is article 1.4.3. 'During the term of this APA the contractor shall not enter into any agreements or accept any commitments which would impede the contractor's ability to to fulfil it's main performance obligations under this APA.'

So Astrazenca couldn't have signed a deal to prioritize UK supplies after it signed up to the EU's APA. The problem is it signed it's contract with the UK before it signed it's contract with the EU and nothing about the EU's APA (or at least the one it signed with Curevac) negates that. In fact as HOI pointed out 'commitments to other purchasers of the product' is specifically set out as a valid reason for delay.

So, yeah, assuming their APA with the EU isn't dramatically different from Curevac's I don't think they have signed two contradictory contracts.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Padraig said:

You mention December?  The contract was signed in August (although provisionally agreed in June).  Although maybe Astrazeneca clarified the timing of deliveries in December?

Probably something like that, as I'Ve heard December being mentioned for reasons in those discussions.

Differences between EU-AZ and UK-AZ contracts.

29 minutes ago, Padraig said:

1) We are going to supply 10m vaccines to the EU in February from 4 factories in EU/UK, 2m to the UK from the 2 UK factories.   

Basically this seems to be case, in combination with the UK's "what gets produced in the UK gets used in the UK first" clause in their AZ contract.

Apparently the EU-AZ contract has no-EU first clause in it. So the EU is now trying to strong arm AZ by threatening with an export ban on vaccines. Ofc. that doesn't just apply to AZ but also to the BionTech (Pfizer) vaccine, which is not produced in the UK, but in Belgium. I am not particularly fond of that EU First move, but at the same time, I find Johnson's the vaccine distrubition should not be an issue of Nationalism (or national egoism or w/e horseshit he said) to be pretty rich. Anyway, this is not about the UK goverment, and AZ has apparently given some ground, and agreed to deliver more than 31m dosages of the vaccine to the EU. It won't be their promised 80m, tho.

Also apparently there's now an agreement to publish parts of the EU-AZ deal, with talks about which parts are to be redacted. Guess we'll know a bit more about the deal in a few days.

[Fragile Bird]

On the bright side of things I heard Sanofi has entered into a contract to produce 150 M doses of the Pfizer vaccine in Europe. It will take them a couple of months to get up to speed, though. It's a complicated vaccine. I think delivery will start in the 3rd quarter, so July.

[Padraig]

28 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

In fact as HOI pointed out 'commitments to other purchasers of the product' is specifically set out as a valid reason for delay.

I see what you are saying but that caveat assumes that the EU were blind to the reality that they were lower down the priority list (since they knew others had already signed a deal), or they were aware of it and they didn't care.

In other words, "you are entitled to 10m doses in February once we have completely filled our other orders".  That's a huge caveat.

I find that dubious.  But if true, somebody is probably going to get fired!

Edited to add.  I think the EU is the only major country/organisation to order the Curevac vaccine, so same caveats wouldn't apply.

[JoannaL]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

On the bright side of things I heard Sanofi has entered into a contract to produce 150 M doses of the Pfizer vaccine in Europe. It will take them a couple of months to get up to speed, though. It's a complicated vaccine. I think delivery will start in the 3rd quarter, so July.

Yes, Biontech is setting up its own factory in Marburg (the one in Belgium belongs to Pfizer). Sanofi will use their Frankfurt facilities for the fill up of that production, so its a German (-American)-French coproduction.

[JoannaL]

2 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I see what you are saying but that caveat assumes that the EU were blind to the reality that they were lower down the priority list (since they knew others had already signed a deal), or they were aware of it and they didn't care.

In other words, "you are entitled to 10m doses in February once we have completely filled our other orders".  That's a huge caveat.

I find that dubious.  But if true, somebody is probably going to get fired!

If they would have known of that earlier commitment  (and a   priotized one) than that will be in the contract. I doubt it, but we will find out. I would read "commitment to other purchaser"  as if when it isnt enough you have to share your part with everyone else who has also a claim, so the EU has to share with UK , but no one ever claimed otherwise.

[JoannaL]

here is in article in the Guardian with legal experts saying that

AstraZeneca may have to renegotiate vaccine contracts, Company may be in danger of breaching contracts to supply EU due to production problem

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/28/astrazeneca-may-have-to-renegotiate-covid-vaccine-contracts-warn-experts

 

from the article:

“The existence of that ‘best efforts’ provision may not be that helpful to AstraZeneca, if the correct construction of the contract is that it does not cover diverted capacity as opposed to lack of capacity.”

and

Greene said the timing of the separate agreements AstraZeneca made with the UK and EU was irrelevant.

He said: “Unless there is a term in the agreements that AstraZeneca must supply the UK first, any separate arrangement they have with the UK is probably irrelevant to the arrangement with the commission. It is not first come, first served.”