BRUSSELS - Europe's second-top court on Wednesday said the European Commission did not give the public sufficient access to the purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, upholding a challenge brought by EU lawmakers against the EU executive's handling of the deals.

The EU executive signed a number of large contracts to secure vaccines from several pharmaceutical companies at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

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European Parliament lawmakers wanted to examine the contracts to understand the terms and conditions but were only given partial access, while some documents were redacted with the Commission saying that this was done to protect commercial interests and the decision-making process.

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The lawmakers subsequently took their grievances to the Luxembourg-based General Court, which said the Commission had not demonstrated that access to certain clauses would have undermined the commercial interest of the companies involved.

It also said the Commission could have given more insight into declarations by members of the team that negotiated the contracts that they had no conflict of interests.

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"The commission did not take sufficient account of all the relevant circumstances in order to weigh up correctly the interests at issue," the court said.

The cases are T-689/21 Auken and Others v Commission and T-761/21 Courtois and Others v Commission.