Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:46
Date: 2001-02-08
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Single Judge
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Admissibility and examination of applications, forms of order sought and pleas in law;Pension rights
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Staff cases - inadmissible

SUMMARY — CASE T-183/98 
Summary 
1. Officials - Pensions - Retirement pension - Early retirement pension -
Recipient subsequently engaged as local staff attached to a Community institution 
— Effect on pension rights — None 
(Staff Regulations, Annex VIII, Arts 9, second indent, and 40, second para.) 
2. Procedure - Application originating proceedings - Formal requirements -
Identification of subject-matter of the proceedings - Summary of the pleas relied 
on - Application seeking compensation for damage caused by a Community 
institution 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 19 and 46; Rules of Procedure of the Court 
of First Instance, Art. 44(1) (c)) 
1. A local staff post held temporarily for a Community institution by a former 
official in receipt of a pension payable on early retirement pursuant to the second 
indent of Article 9 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations does not alter the pension 
rights which he acquired on the date of his request to start to draw the pension. The 
local staff contract under which that post is filled does not have the effect of 
reinstating the person concerned in his former status as an official, but merely of 
placing him temporarily in the service of the Community. 
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FERRANDI v COMMISSION 
That conclusion is not invalidated by the fact that, during the period in which he 
holds the local staff post, the person concerned does not receive his pension. That 
circumstance is merely the consequence of applying the second paragraph of 
Article 40 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations, according to which a 
retirement pension is not to be drawn concurrently with a salary payable by an 
institution of the Communities. 
(see paras 60-61) 
2. Under Article 19 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, applicable to the 
proceedings before the Court of First Instance under Article 46 of that Statute, and 
Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, an 
application must state the subject-matter of the proceedings and contain a summary 
of the pleas in law on which it is based. The information given must be sufficiently 
clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the Court to 
give a ruling. In order to ensure legal certainty and sound administration of justice, 
for an action to be admissible the facts and law on which it is based must be 
apparent from the text of the application itself, at least summarily, provided that the 
statement is coherent and comprehensible. 
In order to satisfy those requirements, an application seeking compensation for 
damage caused by a Community institution must state the evidence from which the 
conduct alleged against the institution can be identified, the reasons for which the 
applicant considers there to be a causal link between that conduct and the harm he 
claims to have suffered, and the nature and extent of that harm. 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-183/98 
Although, in special circumstances, it has been held that it was not essential to 
specify the exact extent of the harm in the application and to state the amount of 
compensation sought, the applicant must nevertheless establish in that application, 
or at least indicate, the existence of any such circumstances. 
The applicant's claim must therefore be held to be inadmissible since he has neither 
clearly indicated the nature of the alleged illegal conduct of the institution concerned 
nor provided evidence from which the actual damage alleged and the existence of 
a causal link between that conduct and the alleged damage can be identified, and 
since he has also failed to indicate the circumstances which allegedly prevented him 
from specifying the extent of the harm suffered by him and from stating the amount 
of compensation sought by him. 
(see paras 80-84) 
See: T-195/95 Guérin automobiles v Commission [1997] ECR II-679, paras 20 and 21; 
T-262/97 Goldstein v Commission [1998] ECR II-2175, para. 25 
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