but even then, I think the EU are some way off

because the thing looks to be littered with the "best reasonable endeavours" qualification, and at least in English law, that won't oblige the supplier to break other (prior) duties (maybe to litigate, maybe to incur unusual expenditure, but not act in breach of duty). So having given it a full 10 minutes of my time, I think it depends on the UK contract, but if that contract says what the UK is saying, the EU is, to use the technical expression, fragged. In fact, hard to believe they were so thoroughly stupid as not to find out about AZ's competing obligations, which they must either have known about in principle or guessed at. If they didn't, the political consequences of all this are going to be substantial.

Posted By: paulg, Jan 29, 15:46:36