European Union court rules European Commission wrongly denied New York Times access to vaccine deal texts; decision marks landmark case for freedom of information access in European Union

By and Matina Stevis-Gridneff.

On Wednesday, the European Union’s General Court rendered a landmark decision regarding freedom of information in the European Union, ruling that the European Commission wrongly denied a request from The New York Times for access to text messages exchanged between the Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the C.E.O. of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, while negotiating the E.U.’s Covid-19 vaccine procurement contracts.

In April 2021, Matina reported that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had exchanged text messages with the Pfizer chief executive, Albert Bourla, forging a trusted relationship that unlocked a multibillion euro deal for coronavirus vaccines. The report led to The Times and others filing freedom of information requests for those text messages. And when those requests were denied, The Times went to court.

Litigating freedom of information cases is not new for The New York Times. By our count, The Times has filed more FOIA lawsuits in the U.S. than our peers. But this is our first European freedom of information lawsuit.

Freedom of information litigation in the E.U. is costly and time-consuming. Unlike in the United States, the European Court requires litigants to have outside counsel, which means a greater financial commitment, and if they lose, the litigant may have to pay costs. Individuals and smaller media organizations lack the finances and resources to see these cases to fruition.

We believe this case was worth pursuing for two reasons.

First, because these particular text messages matter to the public and to our readers, many of whom are European. It matters how the largest procurement contract in E.U. history was negotiated, how public funds were spent during a time when the pandemic was raging across Europe, and critics were accusing the president of the European Commission of mishandling the crisis. To this day, European citizens do not know the cost or terms of the E.U. vaccine contract with Pfizer.

And second, the case would set an important legal precedent: whether text messages are subject to European freedom of information laws. When this case started, the Commission took the position in front of the European Ombudsman that text messages were outside the scope of European freedom of information law and admitted that no Commission official had ever registered a text message in their document management systems. Effectively, officials could avoid transparency laws just by switching from emails to texts. That was deeply problematic.

After we sued, the Commission continued to throw up barriers to transparency. The Commission questioned whether the text messages existed, even though we had a recording of the C.E.O. of Pfizer discussing them in his interview with The New York Times. And the Commission claimed no messages could be found, although Commission lawyers wouldn’t even tell the court where, how or when they had searched for them.

The court’s rulingPRESS RELEASE No 60/25 Luxembourg, 14 May 2025 Judgment of the General Court in Case T-36/23 | Stevi and The New York Times v Commission Access to documents: the Commission decision refusing a journalist of The New York Times access to the text messages exchanged between President von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer is annulled By an application based on the Access to Documents Regulation, 1 Matina Stevi, a journalist working for the daily newspaper The New York Times, requested the European Commission to provide access to all text messages exchanged between President Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla, the chief executive officer of Pfizer, between 1 January 2021 and 11 May 2022. The Commission rejected that application on the ground that it did not hold the documents covered by it. Ms Stevi and The New York Times requested the General Court of the European Union to annul the Commission’s decision. In its judgment, the General Court upholds the action and annuls the Commission’s decision. The Court recalls that the purpose of the Access to Documents Regulation is to give the fullest possible effect to the right of public access to documents held by the institutions. Thus, in principle, all documents of the institutions should be accessible to the public. However, where an institution states that a document does not exist in the context of an application for access, the non-existence of that document is presumed, in accordance with the presumption of veracity attaching to that statement. That presumption may, however, be rebutted on the basis of relevant and consistent evidence produced by the applicant. In the present case, the Court notes that the Commission’s replies regarding the text messages requested throughout the procedure are based either on assumptions or on changing or imprecise information. By contrast, Ms Stevi and The New York Times have produced relevant and consistent evidence describing the existence of exchanges, in the form of text messages in particular, between the President of the Commission and the CEO of Pfizer in the context of the procurement of vaccines by the Commission from that company during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have thus succeeded in rebutting the presumption of non-existence and of non-possession of the requested documents. In such a situation, the Commission cannot merely state that it does not hold the requested documents but must provide credible explanations enabling the public and the Court to understand why those documents cannot be found. The Commission has not explained in detail the type of searches that it carried out to find those documents or the identity of the places where those searches took place. Accordingly, it has not given a plausible explanation to justify the non-possession of the requested documents. Moreover, the Commission has not sufficiently clarified whether the requested text messages were deleted and, if so, whether the deletion was done deliberately or automatically or whether the President’s mobile phone had been replaced in the meantime. Last, the Commission has also failed to explain in a plausible manner why it considered that the text messages exchanged in the context of the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines did not contain important information or information involving follow-up the retention of which must be ensured. Communications Directorate Press and Information Unit curia.europa.eu NOTE: An action for annulment seeks the annulment of acts of the institutions of the European Union that are contrary to EU law. The Member States, the European institutions and individuals may, under certain conditions, bring an action for annulment before the Court of Justice or the General Court. If the action is well founded, the act is annulled. The institution concerned must fill any legal vacuum created by the annulment of the act. NOTE: An appeal, limited to points of law only, may be brought before the Court of Justice against the decision of the General Court within two months and ten days of notification of the decision. Unofficial document for media use, not binding on the General Court. The full text and, as the case may be, an abstract of the judgment is published on the CURIA website on the day of delivery. Press contact: Jacques René Zammit ✆ (+352) 4303 3355. Images of the delivery of the judgment are available on 'Europe by Satellite' ✆ (+32) 2 2964106. St ay Connected! 1 Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents. Communications Directorate Press and Information Unit curia.europa.eu is a full vindication of The Times’s arguments. The court treated text messages like any other document subject to freedom of information laws. In a sharply worded decision, the court criticized the Commission for its lack of transparency and candor throughout this process, and lambasted the Commission for not giving “any plausible explanation as to why it had not been able to find the requested documents.”

In its ruling, the European court also affirmed the core democratic values of transparency and accountability. We hope this decision will cause European officials to remedy the woefully opaque and inadequate record management practices that this case laid bare — and perhaps embolden other news organizations to follow in our footsteps.

Our mission at The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. We believe transparency is worth fighting for, and that this case presented an important, worthy battle.