BioNTech faces hundreds of German compensation claims for COVID-19 vaccine

BioNTech is facing compensation claims brought by two law firms in Germany alleging their clients suffered permanent health damage from the company’s coronavirus vaccine.

The Mainz-based pharmaceuticals maker will hear its first German court on Monday over claims in a case brought on behalf of a middle-aged medical worker.

She is seeking €150,000 in damages for symptoms including heart arrhythmia and brain fog, which she says occurred after receiving the jab.

The challenge, in a regional court in Hamburg, is one of several hundred claims for damages of up to €1 million by the two law firms.

The most prominent of the firms is Dusseldorf-based Rogert & Ulbrich, led by Tobias Ulbrich, an expert in transport and freight law, who has railed against vaccine makers on social media.

The other firm is Kaiser-Preller, also based in Mainz.

The firms successfully won damages for consumers from German carmaker Volkswagen over its diesel emissions scandal.

Given that nearly three-quarters of the 224mn vaccine doses administered in Germany were produced by BioNTech in collaboration with Pfizer, the vast majority of claims are being brought against the Mainz-based company, which pioneered the use of messenger RNA in vaccines. have picked up.

The German cases represent the largest number of compensation claims BioNTech has faced worldwide since it shot to fame during the pandemic.

Ulbricht is a controversial figure, having claimed that American billionaire Bill Gates wanted to use vaccination to reduce Germany’s population by 27 million people – a claim that a spokesman for his foundation said was “false”.

Ulbricht also claimed that blood tests of some of his clients showed them to be suffering from “Vaccine-Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome” or “V-AIDS” – a syndrome that respected scientists say is not real.

The lawyer told the Financial Times that German media reports portraying him as a conspiracy theorist show he is “doing a good job” of intimidating pharmaceutical companies.

Peer-reviewed studies have shown that side effects of the Covid-19 vaccination are rare but do exist, including four types of neurological complications and an inflammation of the heart called myocarditis.

But publicly listed BioNTech said it was confident the cases would be dismissed, pointing to the fact it had decided not to set aside provisions to cover potential compensation claims.

“Potential side effects have not been identified even after continuous monitoring of the safety profile of the vaccine and over 2.6 billion doses of (Covid-19 vaccine) administered worldwide,” BioNTech said.

The company said that, in the Hamburg case, the plaintiffs and its lawyers had failed to demonstrate a “causal relationship between the adverse events and the vaccine” rather than a coincidence, and described the lawsuit as “without merit.”

Ulbricht says the burden of proof – and also the potential compensation – is lower in Germany than elsewhere and he is confident that, especially at the hearings in Munich and Düsseldorf, his clients’ cases are strong.

A ruling against BioNTech would limit direct financial damage inflicted on the company due to the EU’s legal shield, which largely shields vaccine makers from legal liability if they cause unexpected side effects, instead leaving national governments on the hook. Let’s leave

Nevertheless, the company has had to expand its use of additional law firms to deal with the increased caseload.

Rogert and Ulbricht and Kaiser-Preller both rejected allegations that they are taking advantage of the concerns of people who are unwell but have little chance of winning a successful legal challenge for their own financial gain.

They say that in most cases the fee they can charge is limited to around €7,000 and is often paid for by their clients’ insurance. “It is cost intensive,” said Joachim Kaiser-Preller, owner of Kaiser-Preller. “We have a big team. Half the money goes to the court.

Additional reporting by Hannah Kuchler