Pfizer Sues Poland Because It Doesn’t Want to Buy More COVID-19 Vaccines

Syringes with Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are pictured at the temporary vaccination point in the Wroclaw Stadium in Wroclaw, Poland, on June 26, 2021. Omar Marques/Getty Images

Pfizer is suing the government of Poland for alleged failure to buy 60 million doses of the drugmaker’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports and Polish officials.

Pfizer, which filed a civil suit last week in Brussels, is seeking roughly $1.5 billion for the 60 million doses that Polish authorities said last year they no longer want to purchase, according to Polish media 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 to court.

Polish authorities have said that they halted taking deliveries because of the massive financial burden the country has suffered because of the influx of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Poland has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than any other European country amid the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Refugees wait in a crowd for transportation after fleeing from Ukraine and arriving at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, on March 7, 2022. Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

‘Force Majeure’

Last year, Poland requested a change in its contract with Pfizer for 60 million outstanding doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, citing a “force majeure” clause in the contract.

Warsaw stated that the burden of taking in millions of refugees from the war in nearby Ukraine, as well as the economic effect of the conflict, justified a reworking 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.

Paramedics wheel a stretcher with a patient showing COVID-19 symptoms from a nursery house in Bochnia, Poland, on Dec. 1, 2020. Omar Marques/Getty Images

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 were pointless from the perspective of public health needs and called for a “fundamental” revision of vaccine contracts.

Since then, Poland and Pfizer have been seeking a compromise but have 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,” Iwona Kania told TVN24.

A preliminary court date has been scheduled for Dec. 6, according to the spokesperson.

Pfizer didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. However, a Pfizer spokesperson told Politico that the drugmaker is seeking to enforce the terms of the agreement.

“Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking to hold Poland to its commitments for COVID-19 vaccine orders placed by the Polish Government, as part of their contract to supply the European Union signed in May 2021,” a spokesperson for Pfizer told Politico, noting that Pfizer’s vaccine development partner BioNTech has also joined the proceedings.

More Details

Katarzyna Sojka, Poland’s health minister, told TVN24 that she hopes for a “positive resolution” of the lawsuit, although she noted that the situation is difficult.

Poland isn’t alone in this situation, Ms. Sojka said, noting that there are other EU countries that have a similar problem, although she wasn’t more specific. However, when Poland moved to change the terms of the vaccine contract, 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 that he appreciated 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 said.

The reason Pfizer brought the lawsuit in Brussels is because the doses were purchased through joint procurement contracts at an 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 stated that 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.