Order — ECLI:EU:F:2013:212
Date: 2013-12-12
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases;Action for damages

Summary 1. Actions brought by officials — Action for damages — Application for annulment of the pre-litigation decision rejecting the request for compensation — Application not independent of the claim for damages (Staff Regulations, Art. 91) 2. Judicial proceedings — Legal costs — Costs incurred by the Civil Service Tribunal as a result of an action which is an abuse of process by an official — Order for the official to refund those costs (Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 94) 1. The claim for annulment of the measure containing an institution’s view with regard to compensation during the pre-litigation phase cannot be assessed separately from the claim for damages since the effect of that measure is solely to permit those claims to be brought before the Civil Service Tribunal. (see para. 32) See: 14 October 2004, T‑256/02 I v Court of Justice, para. 47 and the case-law cited 2. Under Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, if the Tribunal has incurred avoidable costs, in particular where the action is manifestly an abuse of process, it may order the party who caused such costs to be incurred to refund them in whole or in part, but the amount of that refund may not exceed EUR 2 000. An action is manifestly an abuse of process where an applicant has opted to bring legal proceedings for no good reason and has already, in several cases, put forward pleas and grounds of complaint that are similar, even identical, to those submitted in support of the action at issue, and those pleas have been rejected by an order, in all the cases brought by the applicant, as being manifestly inadmissible or manifestly unfounded in law. (see paras 52-54)