The European Medicines Agency (EMA) can not stop the lease for the London office due to the incoming Brexit. That is what a judge decided. The rent including other costs amounts annually to around € 2 million.

The agency that oversees medicines should leave London because Britain is leaving the EU. Amsterdam dragged in the coveted agency. The EMA must have moved to the Netherlands by 1 April 2019 at the latest.

The EEA is still in the London business district Canary Wharf. The organization argued that the Brexit was an unexpected event that “disrupted” the 25-year lease for the office. For that reason, the EMA would no longer be bound by the deal. But the judge did not share that vision.

The ruling may have major consequences, because many more companies are looking for a way out of the United Kingdom because of the Brexit and want to get rid of long-term lease agreements.