By Tom Ozimek – The Epoch Times
Pfizer has filed a lawsuit against Poland because the country doesn’t want to buy more contracted doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer has sued the government of Poland for alleged failure to buy 60 million contracted doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports and Polish officials.
A spokesperson for Poland’s health ministry, Iwona Kania, told local news outlet TVN24 on Thursday that over a year of negotiations failed to yield a compromise over tens of millions of contracted doses that Poland doesn’t want to buy—and so Pfizer has filed a lawsuit.
Pfizer’s civil suit, filed earlier this week in Brussels, Belgium, demands that the Polish government pay roughly $1.5 billion for the 60 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine that Polish authorities said last year they no longer want to purchase, according to Polish news outlet Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, which was the first to report on the terms of the suit.
While Polish government officials have said that they hope there’s still a chance that the lawsuit might end in some kind of a settlement, for now, it appears that Warsaw’s 19-month struggle to back out of the deal—or modify the terms of the contract with Pfizer—is heading for a courtroom battle.
Polish authorities have justified their refusal to buy the contracted doses by the massive financial burden the country has suffered due to the influx of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Poland has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than any other European country amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
‘Force Majeure’
Last year, Poland requested a change of its contract with Pfizer for 60 million outstanding doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, citing a “force majeure” clause in the contract.
Warsaw said that the burden of taking in millions of refugees from the war in nearby Ukraine, as well as the economic impact of the conflict, justified a rejigging of the contract terms.
“There’s been a change in the epidemiological situation—though mostly it’s the geopolitical situation—and so the contracts for COVID-19 vaccines must change as well,” then chief of Poland’s health ministry, Adam Niedzielski, told the PAP Polish press agency in April 2022.
Then, in May 2022, Mr. Niedzielski wrote an open letter to Pfizer investors, telling them that the company’s plans to deliver hundreds of millions of vaccine doses was pointless from the perspective of public health needs and called for a “fundamental” revision of vaccine contracts.
Since then, Poland and Pfizer have been in talks to find a compromise, but failed to reach a settlement. The Polish health ministry spokesperson blamed the pharmaceutical giant for the breakdown in talks.
“Pfizer representatives failed to put forward any practical solutions for this extraordinary situation, despite numerous declarations that they’re ready to enter into dialogue with Poland and despite assurances that they understand the situation that the Polish government is focusing its efforts on helping a country mired in war,” Ms. Kania told TVN24.
A preliminary court date has been scheduled for Dec. 6, 2023, the spokesperson added.
Pfizer did not reply to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. However, a Pfizer spokesperson told Politico that the company is seeking to enforce the terms of the agreement.
More Details
Katarzyna Sojka, Poland’s health minister, told TVN24 that she sees hope for a “positive resolution” of the lawsuit, though she added that the situation is difficult.
Poland isn’t alone in this situation, Ms. Sojka said, noting that there are other European Union countries that have a similar problem, though she didn’t provide further details. However, after Poland moved to change the terms of the contract with Pfizer, several other countries in Central and Eastern Europe followed suit, arguing that they were trapped into buying vaccines they didn’t need at a time of major geopolitical upheaval that was hurting them economically. However, Poland was the only country to actually refuse to take delivery of Pfizer’s vaccines.
A parallel quest to revise Poland’s contract with Moderna for previously contracted COVID-19 vaccine doses proved successful. Mr. Niedzielski told media outlets in January 2023 that he appreciates Moderna’s “openness and understanding of our position and—finally—for agreeing to modify the contract.”
“Unfortunately, Pfizer has thus far not demonstrated any of these qualities,” he added.
The reason Pfizer brought the lawsuit in Brussels is because the doses were purchased through joint procurement contracts at a European Union (EU) level, with the contracts drawn up under Belgian law, according to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
In 2021, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, signed a massive contract with Pfizer for up to 1.8 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine. Ultimately, 1.1 billion doses would be purchased under the agreement.
In May, the European Commission said it had reached a deal with Pfizer to revise the terms of the pan-European deal for COVID-19 vaccines, reducing the number of doses by an unspecified amount and spreading out deliveries.
Poland has refused to sign up to the revised deal.