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Originally Posted by nomadking
Both 5.1 and 5.4 refer to "Best Reasonable Efforts" to manufacture in the EU. 5.4 is labelled "Manufacturing sites" and includes the UK as being included in the definition of an "EU manufacturing site". You can't really have a different definition of "EU manufacturing site" in one paragraph, to the rest of the document.
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Except that you can, if the contract explicitly says so. Which it does.
"AstraZeneca shall use its best reasonable efforts to manufacture the vaccine at manufacturing sites within the EU (which, for the purpose of this
section 5.4 only shall include the United Kingdom)".
They even helpfully underlined it.
Section 5.4 has nothing to do with allocation of supply, it is about the EU's preference for where AstraZeneca should conduct its operations.
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13.1 is where AZ said no other agreement "would impede the complete fulfillment of its obligations under this Agreement;". Supplying the UK and other countries, effectively "impedes" fulfilling the EU order.
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Only if the EU agreement gives the EU priority to UK product at the same time as the UK's agreement also gives the UK priority to the UK product. Which it doesn't.
Furthermore, Schedule A still doesn't allocate existing UK manufacturing capacity to the EU. In nominating three UK locations (these can only be the Oxford and Keele 'drug substance' plants and the Wrexham plant where the vials of 'drug product' are filled and packaged) Schedule A acknowledges that AstraZeneca can develop production capacity for the EU there. The fact is, by the time this contract was signed, what was already in existence (or under construction) at those locations was already under obligation to the UK government.
Doubtless the EU will contest that reading of it, but possession is 9/10ths of the law as they say - there is simply no way the British government is going to allow any AstraZeneca product to leave the country unless it can be done without affecting the UK's planned vaccination schedule.