The European Commission is working on legal proceedings against AstraZeneca after the drugmaker cut COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to the European Union, sources familiar with the matter said.
The move would mark a further step in an EU plan to sever ties with the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker after the company repeatedly cut supplies to the bloc, contributing to major delays in Europe's vaccine rollout.
The news about the legal case was first reported on Thursday by Politico. An EU official involved in talks with drugmakers confirmed the EU was preparing to sue the company.
"EU states have to decide if they (will) participate. It is about fulfillment of deliveries by the end of the second quarter," the official said.
The matter was discussed on Wednesday at a meeting with EU diplomats, the official and a diplomat said. Politico, citing five unnamed European diplomats, reported that a majority of EU countries at the meeting said they would support suing the company.
There was no immediate response from AstraZeneca on Thursday to a request for comment. A spokesman for the European Commission had no immediate comment.
Brussels in March sent a legal letter to the company in the first step of a potential legal procedure.
When the deadline for a reply expired this month, a spokesman for the Commission said the matter was discussed in a meeting with AstraZeneca but the EU was still seeking further clarification from the company on "a number of outstanding points".
The spokesman did not elaborate, but details of the letter published by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera show the EU was seeking clarification on what it deemed a delayed application to the EU regulator for approval of the vaccine.
Brussels also questioned how AstraZeneca spent over 224 million euros ($270 million) granted by the EU in September to buy vaccine ingredients and for which the company had not provided sufficient documents confirming the purchases.
Under the contract, the company had committed to making its "best reasonable efforts" to deliver to the EU 180 million vaccine doses in the second quarter, for a total of 300 million in the period from December to June.
But the company said in a statement on March 12 it would aim to deliver only one third of that. The EU letter was sent a week after that statement.
Under the contract, the parties agreed that Belgian courts would be responsible to settle unresolved disputes.
The EU has decided not to take up an option to buy 100 million extra doses of AstraZeneca under the contract, an EU official said, after supply delays and safety concerns about very rare cases of blood clots linked to the vaccine .
($1 = 0.8304 euros)