€35 billion negotiated by private SMS, deleted. 1,291 adverse event categories hidden. Every Member State acknowledged unknown long-term effects in writing — while telling citizens the opposite. The network is documented. The contracts are primary source.
"The Participating Member State acknowledges that the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known and that there may be adverse effects of the Vaccine that are not currently known."
Every government that ordered doses signed this text. During the same period, official communications across Europe told citizens the vaccines had been rigorously tested and were safe. The gap between what governments signed in private and what they said in public is the accountability question this document raises.
The individuals below did not emerge independently. They form an interlocking network of relationships — educational, professional, and institutional — that shaped both who made the decisions and why those decisions took the form they did. Every element below is individually documented and uncontested.
Personally negotiated the €35 billion Pfizer contract through private SMS with CEO Albert Bourla. Those messages have been deleted or declared lost. The EU General Court found this explanation implausible. The EPPO investigation covers interference in public functions, destruction of evidence, corruption, and conflict of interest. She was re-elected Commission President in July 2024. Her husband was appointed Medical Director of a pharmaceutical company in September 2020 — the same month EU procurement strategy was finalised — undisclosed.
Joined Rothschild & Cie in 2008. His first major deal: brokering Nestlé's $11.8 billion acquisition of Pfizer's baby food division in 2012. Named David de Rothschild's protégé by the Financial Times. Installed Von der Leyen as Commission President at the 2019 European Council. Among the most aggressive European leaders enforcing vaccine access restrictions. Rothschild & Co simultaneously published an investor interview with Pfizer's Investor Relations Officer on their own website in April 2021 — during peak EU procurement.
Built Von der Leyen's political career across 14 years and four successive cabinet appointments. Simultaneously blocked the TRIPS intellectual property waiver throughout 2021 — protecting Pfizer and Moderna's IP monopolies globally, the same monopolies guaranteed in the contracts Von der Leyen had negotiated. Her Stasi file exists and is sealed. She controls consent to its release. In March 2026, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled it cannot be compelled. The structural parallel to Von der Leyen's deleted texts is exact.
The formal signatory of both contracts — her signature legally bound all 27 Member States. Appointed by Von der Leyen. Before MEPs she insisted "the Commission President was not involved in any COVID vaccine contract negotiations" — a claim directly contradicted by Von der Leyen's own admission to the New York Times. No investigation announced.
The person on the other end of Von der Leyen's deleted text messages. Negotiated the €35 billion deal personally, outside formal procurement channels. Twice refused invitations to testify before the European Parliament's COVID committee. In November 2021, while the EPPO investigation was building, he and Von der Leyen appeared together at the Atlantic Council's Distinguished Leadership Awards in Washington. She called him "dear Albert." He said her words left him "almost in tears." The contracts were already signed. The evidence was already being sought.
Sources: Pfizer APA SANTE/2020/C3/043; Moderna PA SANTE/2021/C3/010; NYT May 2022; EU General Court Case T-252/21; Financial Times 2018; France 24 December 2019; Foreign Policy April 2021; Rothschild & Co website, April 2021; Atlantic Council ceremony records, November 10, 2021; Human Rights Watch, June 14, 2021; Berliner Zeitung, March 13, 2026.
The European Commission, acting under Emergency Support Instrument (EU) 2016/369, concluded Advance Purchase Agreements on behalf of all participating Member States. The formal signatory was Commissioner Kyriakides. The actual negotiator, by her own admission to the New York Times, was Von der Leyen. Under Article 7 of the framework agreement, Member States agreed not to negotiate separately with the same manufacturers — locking them into whatever terms the Commission had agreed, sight unseen.
Both contracts transferred every last euro of legal liability for adverse events from the manufacturers to Member States and therefore to citizens. The companies retained full intellectual property ownership — IP substantially funded by EU taxpayers through advance payments. Citizens bore the risk. Companies kept the reward.
"The Commission, on behalf of the Participating Member States, declares that the use of Vaccines produced under this APA will happen under epidemic conditions requiring such use, and that the administration of Vaccines will therefore be conducted under the sole responsibility of the Participating Member States."
A sovereign government pre-declared its own citizens solely responsible for harm from a product — before those citizens were told this had been agreed, before the product received regulatory authorisation, before a single dose was administered.
The only route by which Pfizer can lose its indemnification protection is proof of Wilful Misconduct — defined as "any wrongful act, willingly and knowingly committed, with the intent to cause harmful effects." This standard has never been successfully established against a pharmaceutical company in post-market litigation anywhere in the world. It was not chosen by accident.
When a citizen brings a legal claim, Pfizer controls the legal defence, chooses its own lawyers, directs the strategy — and the legal costs are borne by the Member State. The citizen sues. Their government pays Pfizer's lawyers to fight them. This was agreed in the contract. It was redacted from the public version.
The following findings are drawn directly from the unredacted Moderna Purchase Agreement (SANTE/2021/C3/010), signed 26 February 2021 by Moderna and 4 March 2021 by Kyriakides.
"The indemnification set forth herein is intended to be interpreted broadly in favor of indemnification and shall be available regardless of whether the Losses originate from Claims regarding testing, development, manufacture, delivery, export, import, distribution, sale, offer for sale, administration, use or deployment of the Product." Moderna PA SANTE/2021/C3/010, Art. II.5.1
Every point in the chain from laboratory to patient is covered. No category of harm is excluded.
Article II.4.6 caps Moderna's maximum aggregate liability at 20 percent of amounts actually paid — lower than Pfizer's 50 percent of advance payment. Both are trivial relative to total contract value and the scale of potential harm.
Annex V of the unredacted contract lists confirmed manufacturing partners — both redacted from the public version:
"Lonza AG — Münchensteinstrasse 38, 4002 Basel, Switzerland / Lonzastrasse, 3930 Visp, Switzerland — Manufacturing and releasing of final drug substance." Moderna PA SANTE/2021/C3/010, Annex V
"Rovi Pharma Industrial Services SAU — Via Complutense 140, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain / Paseo de Europa 50, San Sebastián de los Reyes, 28703 Madrid, Spain — Filling, packaging, labeling and releasing of final drug product." Moderna PA SANTE/2021/C3/010, Annex V
Both manufacturing partners were funded substantially by the advance payment of €318,471,338 — payable within 15 days of signature, before any doses were delivered.
"Safety/Reactogenicity: The safety of the vaccine is currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Measures of Efficacy: The efficacy of the vaccine is currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Durability of protection: The durability of protection of the vaccine is currently being evaluated in clinical trials." Moderna PA SANTE/2021/C3/010, Annex VI — Preliminary Specifications of the Product
These statements appear in the contract's own technical annex — the document describing what was being purchased. At the time of signing, safety, efficacy, and duration of protection were all, by Moderna's own contractual admission, matters still under investigation.
| Term | Amount / Detail |
|---|---|
| Price (1–100M doses) | €17.50 per dose |
| Price (101–200M doses) | €13.50 per dose |
| Average (200M doses) | €15.50 per dose |
| Advance Payment | €700,000,000 — to Citibank Dublin, before authorisation |
| Governing Law | Belgium |
| Signed | 20 November 2020 |
| Signatories | Nanette Cocero (Pfizer); Stella Kyriakides (Commission) |
| Manufacturer liability | Zero — all transferred to Member States |
| IP ownership | Pfizer/BioNTech sole owners |
"Each Participating Member State represents that it has adequate statutory or regulatory authority and adequate funding appropriation to undertake and completely fulfil the indemnification obligations pursuant to Article 1.12 of this APA." Pfizer APA SANTE/2020/C3/043, Art. II.6.6
The indemnification obligation under Article 1.12 has no ceiling in terms of harm covered. Article II.6.6 then requires each government to represent its national treasury stands behind unlimited indemnification claims. Citizens were not told their governments had made this representation. This clause was redacted from the public version.
The redactions were not random and not primarily about trade secrets. They followed a precise logic: everything that would have caused public outrage was hidden; everything that provided political legitimacy was left visible.
| Article | What Was Redacted | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 1.7 | Price per dose — entire section hidden. Tiered structure (avg €15.50) invisible. | Citizens could not assess whether public money was responsibly spent or whether Pfizer received above-market rates from a captive buyer with no competitive tender. |
| Art. 1.8.1 | €700M advance payment — hidden. Paid before a single dose delivered. | Citizens' money was committed before authorisation was received. No public scrutiny was possible. |
| Art. 1.6.3 | Delivery schedule — dates and quarterly volumes redacted. | Citizens could not verify whether deliveries were on schedule or whether governments were accepting substandard performance. |
| Art. 1.6.9 | Storage temperature requirement — the -75°C cold chain was hidden. | The true total cost of procurement was concealed. Citizens were not told of the extreme cold chain infrastructure their governments had committed to fund. |
| Art. 1.12 | Full liability transfer clause — Pfizer indemnified against virtually all adverse outcomes. | Citizens could not know their governments had waived the right to sue Pfizer for harm. The manufacturer bore no accountability; citizens bore unlimited liability. |
| Art. 1.8.3 | Bank account — Citibank Dublin destination for the €700M advance. | Public money was wired to an undisclosed account. Citizens had no means to verify the advance payment reached the intended recipient. |
| Art. 1.9 | Contact names — Janine Small and Nanette Cocero redacted. | Accountability requires knowing who signed and who managed the relationship. Anonymisation of corporate signatories is without precedent in public procurement. |
| Annex V (Moderna) | Manufacturing partners Lonza AG and Rovi Pharma — addresses and roles redacted. | Citizens' advance payments funded private manufacturing capacity at facilities whose identities were hidden from the public version of the contract. |
| Art. II.6.6 | Sovereign immunity waiver — entire clause hidden. | Citizens were not told their governments had pledged national treasury capacity to cover any and all harm from a product whose safety was contractually acknowledged as unknown. |
Within 90 days of the rollout, Pfizer compiled an internal post-marketing surveillance report identifying 1,291 adverse event categories across 42,086 case reports. The FDA asked that this document be kept from public view for 75 years. A federal court ordered earlier disclosure. It is now public.
During that same period, governments across Europe told citizens the vaccines were safe and effective. Those same governments had already signed contracts indemnifying Pfizer against liability for exactly the adverse events now being catalogued. Citizens had no access to the data. They had no legal recourse under the contracts.
The Comirnaty occupational safety datasheet classifies the active mRNA substance BNT162b2 at OEB5 — the highest possible occupational hazard band — while simultaneously describing its toxicological properties as "not thoroughly investigated." Required protections for anyone handling it included respiratory protection, full impermeable body clothing, double nitrile gloves, and eye protection. None of the healthcare workers administering the product were given this information. The download links for the datasheet were redacted in the publicly released contracts. When the German Federal Ministry of Health formally requested the datasheet from BioNTech, BioNTech could not produce it. The document was not archived online until December 2022 — after hundreds of millions of doses had been administered.
In October 2023, the European Medicines Agency confirmed in writing to elected MEPs that COVID-19 vaccines "have not been authorised for preventing transmission from one person to another." Transmission prevention was the stated justification for vaccine passports and access restrictions that functionally compelled vaccination across Europe. The EMA's confirmation means those restrictions lacked the scientific foundation on which they were publicly justified.
Sources: Pfizer 5.3.6 post-marketing report (primary source); Pfizer-BioNTech Sicherheitsdatenblatt Version 2.01, May 2022; EMA letter to MEP Marcel de Graaff et al., EMA/451828/2023, 18 October 2023.
On 7 April 2022, the German Bundestag voted directly on whether to make vaccination compulsory. It said no — 378 votes to 296. The democratic answer was no.
The practical answer, through access restriction systems implemented by executive ordinances that did not require parliamentary approval, was already yes. 3G rules applied to workplaces and public transport. 2G rules excluded the unvaccinated from bars, restaurants, cinemas, museums, and events — even with a negative test showing they posed no viral risk. None of this was based on evidence that the vaccine prevented transmission. The EMA had never said it did. People lost jobs, income, and businesses they had built over decades, on the basis of a justification the regulator had never made, for a product whose safety was contractually acknowledged as unknown.
The complete analysis — including all contract citations, the full network analysis, the Merkel/Stasi file thread, source attribution table, and methodological note — is available as the primary accountability document. Version 12, July 2026.
Document steward: R. Leland Lehrman — lelandlehrman@protonmail.com. Primary source documents referenced in this report — including the unredacted Pfizer and Moderna Advance Purchase Agreements, the Pfizer 5.3.6 post-marketing adverse event report, the Comirnaty occupational safety datasheet, and EMA correspondence with MEPs — are available on request.
All factual claims are drawn from verified primary sources cited inline. The EPPO investigation is ongoing; no criminal findings have been made against Von der Leyen. Source attribution has been reviewed and corrected in this version. This document presents primary source evidence and documented analysis. No claim of conspiracy beyond the documented evidence is asserted.