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The New York Times is taking the European Commission to court over the executive body’s failure to release text messages between its president Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
The newspaper will face off against EU lawyers in the bloc’s highest court, arguing that the commission faces a legal obligation to release the messages, which contain billions of COVID-19 doses. There may be information on block deals for the purchase of Euros.
The case was registered on 25 January and published on the European Court of Justice public register on Monday, but so far no detailed information is available online. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the details of the case to POLITICO.
The New York Times declined to comment on the case. A statement from the publication said: “The Times files numerous freedom of information requests and maintains an active docket. We cannot comment at this time on the subject of this lawsuit.”
The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit follows a January 2022 investigation by European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, which identified malpractices in the Commission’s efforts to recover text messages originally posted after a public access request. netzpolitik.org Journalist Alexander Fanta. The Ombudsman’s inquiry found that the commission had not explicitly asked the President’s personal office to see the text messages.
In response, the EU Commissioner for Prices and Transparency Vera Jourova claimed that the text messages may have been deleted due to their “ephemeral, ephemeral nature”.
Germany’s Bild daily previously filed a series of lawsuits against the Commission seeking disclosure of documents related to negotiations to buy COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca.
While many of its petitions were rejected by courts, Bild — which, like POLITICO, is owned by publisher Axel Springer — obtained some documents related to the talks, including email correspondence dating back to June 2020. No information about von der Leyen’s prior contacts, however, came to light as a result of litigation by Pfizer CEO Borla Bild.
Additional reporting by Douglas Busvaine and Aoife White.