The New York Times has sued the European Commission over their refusal to release the text messages between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. NYT first reported on the peculiar exchange in January 2021 and filed its lawsuit in April 2021. However, the case just became visible on the docket of the EU Court of Justice earlier this week.

The European Union bought 1.8 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the American pharmaceutical and biotech giant Pfizer back in January 2021. While originally the price was reported at €15.50 per dose, the total came out to around €35 billion, according to leaked information revealed later. Journalist Alexander Fanta of Netzpolitik.org first requested access to the messages shortly after the Pfizer deal was announced but was denied since Commission claimed it could not find any of them.

EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who has recently called for the strengthening of the Ethics Committee in wake of the infamous Qatargate scandal, launched an inquiry into the issue of the lost text messages in January 2022, about a year after they were sent. However, that investigation turned up nothing. EU’s Values and Transparency Commissioner Věra Jourová stated that the messages could have been deleted, due to their ‘short-lived, ephemeral nature’. In October 2022, European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) announced they are opening a criminal case into the contracts the Union signed with Pfizer over vaccine sales, with President von der Leyen being a key person of interest.

POLITICO reached out to The New York Times but they refused to comment on their ongoing lawsuit. EU Commissioners were expected to respond to the suit in a brief press conference on Tuesday, 14 February but completely dodged the matter and talked about revised emissions reduction targets instead.