EU court to hear case on von der Leyen’s texts with Pfizer next month

On November 15, the EU Court of Justice will consider a high-profile case about possible violations committed by the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen when concluding contracts for the purchase of the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer.

The lawsuit was filed by The New York Times, Report informs via The Financial Times.

The European Court of Justice will hear the case on November 15, people briefed on the preparations said. It will be considered by a 15-judge grand chamber, which generally deals with highly complex cases or those deemed to be of high importance. According to the newspaper’s reporting, Bourla said he and von der Leyen had exchanged private text messages, and von der Leyen had said she was personally involved in negotiating the vaccine purchase contracts.

The court is expected to decide on the admissibility of evidence, and then ask the commission’s legal representatives to explain whether the texts ever existed, and if so why they were not recorded. They are also expected to be asked if they were destroyed, and if so, on what grounds. Von der Leyen’s push for Brussels to collectively buy billions of vaccines, and distribute them to EU member states struggling to contain Covid-19 has largely been seen as a success, and helped to cement her reputation as an effective, centralized manager.

But the controversy over her purported private correspondence with Bourla, whose vaccines were in huge demand at the time, has dogged her since then, and fuelled criticism from those who alleged the negotiations were not transparent and she took too much personal control. The EU’s general court ruled in July that the commission unlawfully concealed some details of its Covid-19 vaccine procurement contracts in a separate case.