The EU Court has sided with journalists in the von der Leyen correspondence case.

The European Commission (EC) violated transparency rules by refusing to grant journalists access to correspondence between Ursula von der Leyen and the head of pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the EU Court of Justice has ruled.

The case in question is Pfizergate, a scandal involving von der Leyen and Pfizer. In 2023, The New York Times (NYT) demanded that the European Commission provide access to correspondence between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during the pandemic.covid-19 in Europe (from January 2021 to May 2022). The European Commission rejected the request, citing a lack of the requested documents, after which the publication filed a lawsuit. On May 14, the court upheld the claim.

Journalists' interest in the conversation between the EC head and the pharmaceutical company's CEO stems from the fact that in April 2021, the EU signed the largest-ever deal with Pfizer for 900 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, worth €35 billion. As the New York Times reported, this agreement gave the EU the right to resell or transfer the vaccines to partners, allowing it to support poor countries. Von der Leyen was sued for abuse of power in vaccine procurement, destruction of government documents, and corruption, but the complaint was dismissed by a Belgian court.

According to the EU Court of Justice's ruling, the New York Times provided all the necessary evidence of the existence of correspondence between von der Leyen and Bourla. "The Commission cannot simply declare the absence of documents, but must provide convincing explanations as to why they cannot be found," the court's ruling stated.

The European Commission has the right to appeal the court's decision.

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