Pfizergate

Pfizergate refers to a scandal involving European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer over the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.

[2][3] Von der Leyen previously used her phone to award contracts worth several hundred million euros while acting as defense minister of Germany, effectively bypassing public procurement processes.

While awarding the COVID-19 vaccine contracts worth billions of euros as head of EU commission, she similarly bypassed procurement processes via her phone and withheld messages on it.

This statements led the Ombudsman to file a complaint in January 2022, accusing them of maladministration and urging the EU executive to "conduct a more thorough search for relevant messages".

In response, EU Transparency Commissioner Věra Jourová said the search for text messages between von der Leyen and Bourla "did not yield any results".

[12] The term "Pfizergate" was also used after a report from the British Medical Journal raised concerns over the data integrity and regulatory oversight of the Pfizer vaccine trials.