Pfizer sued Romania to pay the money for the purchase of millions of doses of anti-Covid vaccine
Pfizer – BioNTech sued Romania to force our country to pay for all the anti-Covid vaccines it contracted following the protocol signed in 2021.
“Pfizer and BioNTech seek to make Romania comply with its commitments for the orders of COVID-19 vaccines placed by the Government of Romania, part of the supply contract for the European Union, signed in May 2021. This formal procedure comes after long discussions between the parties, which have held in the spirit of partnership with Romania and with members of the Romanian Government. Pfizer and BioNTech believe it is important that all parties involved comply with their contractual obligations, based on the agreement that facilitated the success of the European response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” states a response from the Pfizer – BioNTech association sent to Context.ro.
The legal action initiated against Romania is not the first that the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer initiates. Last November, Pfizer sued Poland for failing to honor payments for 60 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine contacted by the Polish state. In December 2023, the company confirmed that it had also sued Hungary for the same reason.
The Romanian anti-corruption body DNA asked the Presidency and the Senate to approve the start of the criminal investigation against the former Prime Minister Florin Citu and the former Ministers of Health, Vlad Voiculescu and Oana Mihaila, in a file regarding the procurement of anti-Covid vaccines during the pandemic.
The anti-corruption prosecutors argue their accusations in the anti-Covid vaccines file, in which Florin Citu, Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihaila are being investigated for abuse of office and complicity in abuse of office, on the fact that the three, who were prime ministers and ministers of of Health, approved the purchase of tens of millions of doses of vaccine above the already contracted requirement, which covered more than enough of the estimated population to be vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The name of the current head of the National Health Insurance House, Andrei Baciu, also appears in the prosecutors’ report.
The damage calculated by the prosecutors for the vaccine doses bought for nothing by the Romanian state exceeds one billion euros