Security News > 2021 > January > European Commission redacts AstraZeneca vaccine contract – but forgets to wipe the bookmarks tab
The European Commission's war of words against pharma company AstraZeneca over COVID-19 virus vaccines has descended into farce after Brussels accidentally published an unredacted version of a disputed supply contract.
Although the main text of the contract had been heavily redacted in places, nobody thought to check the bookmarks tab had also been redacted before dumping the contract online as a PDF. A non-redacted section of the contract states: "The Receiving Party shall treat all Confidential Information as secret and confidential and shall not use, copy or disclose to any third party any Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party."
The contract itself was published as part of a EU political strategy focused on obtaining vaccine doses at the expense of the UK by applying pressure to AstraZeneca - the bloc is way behind schedule in deliveries because of the way it spread its bets among vaccine makers in its purchasing strategy back in 2020.
EU officials claim that the bloc is legally entitled, under the contract, to take possession of all AstraZeneca vaccine doses being produced on the Continent.
Bloc leaders have asserted that by fulfilling the UK's order ahead of theirs, AstraZeneca was in breach of its EU contract: hence the EU Commission's decision to publish the contract, in the hopes of ramping up pressure on the British-Swedish pharmaceutical goliath.
Neither AstraZeneca nor the EU Commission responded to requests for comment, though by the time of publication red-faced EU officials had replaced the PDF file with one that had all of its bookmarks removed.