Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:72
Date: 2001-03-06
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Measures of inquiry and measures of organisation of procedure;General;Right to a judicial remedy;European Investment Bank
Procedure: Staff cases - inadmissible;Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY - CASE T-192/99 
Summary 
1. Procedure - Measures of organisation of procedure - Request for the 
withdrawal of certain documents from the file by a party who has acknowledged the 
relevance of those documents for the settlement of the dispute - Rejection 
2. Officials - Actions - Disputes between the European Investment Bank and its 
staff - Time-limits for bringing proceedings - Requirement that action be brought 
within a reasonable time - Point at which time starts to run 
(Art. 236 EC; Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91; Staff Regulations of the European 
Investment Bank) 
3. Officials - Actions - Action against a measure of general application -
Decision of the European Investment Bank to abolish the system of special 
conversion rates — Inadmissibility 
(Art. 236 EC) 
4. Officials - Remuneration - European Investment Bank - General principle 
common to the laws of the Member States preventing the EIB from unilaterally 
withdrawing a financial advantage freely granted to its staff on a continuous basis 
- Duty to consult the college of staff representatives - Scope 
(Staff Regulations of the European Investment Bank, Art. 24, first para., and 
Art. 44) 
I-A - 66 
DUNNETT AND OTHERS v EIB 
1. In proceedings before the Community courts, a party must be considered to have 
implicitly accepted that it cannot request the withdrawal of certain documents from 
the file where it has acknowledged the relevance of those documents for the 
settlement of the dispute in citing them and referring to them in its pleadings. 
(see para. 34) 
See: T-134/94, T-136/94 to T-138/94, T-141/94. T-145/94, T-147/94, T-148/94, 
T-151/94. T-156/94 and T-157/94 NMH Stahlwerke and Others v Commission [1997] 
ECR II-2293, paras 47 and 48 
2. The need to weigh the entitlement to effective protection by the courts, which is 
one of the general principles of Community law and implies that those subject to the 
courts' jurisdiction must have a sufficient period of time available to them to assess 
the lawfulness of the act adversely affecting them and if necessary prepare their 
case, against the need for legal certainty which requires that, after a certain time, 
measures taken by Community bodies become definitive requires that disputes 
between the EIB and its staff should be brought before the Community judicature 
within a reasonable period. 
In order to determine whether an action has been brought within a reasonable 
period, account must be taken of the conditions on time-limits for bringing actions 
laid down by Articles 90 and 91 of the EC Staff Regulations. It must be held that, 
although the staff of the EIB are subject to specific regulations drawn up by the 
EIB, disputes between the European Investment Bank and its staff are comparable 
in nature to disputes between the Community institutions and their officials or other 
servants, which are covered by Articles 90 and 91 of the EC Staff Regulations. 
I-A - 67 
SUMMARY - CASE T-192/99 
As regards the commencement of the limitation period for bringing actions, the very 
fact that the second paragraph of Article 41 of the EIB's Rules of Procedure 
provides for an optional conciliation procedure leads to the conclusion that, if a 
member of the EIB's staff requests the application of that procedure, the limitation 
period for bringing an action before the Community judicature does not start to run 
until the conciliation procedure has been concluded, provided that the member of 
staff has made his request for conciliation within reasonable time of having been 
notified of the act adversely affecting him and that the duration of the conciliation 
procedure itself is reasonable. To hold otherwise would mean that an EIB employee 
would be obliged to bring an action before the Community judicature at a time when 
he was still endeavouring to have the matter settled amicably. 
(see paras 52-54, 56) 
See: T-57/89 Alexandrakis v Commission [1990] ECR II-143, para. 8; T-202/97 Koopman 
v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-163 and II-511, paras 23 to 25; T-74/99 Meyer v 
Council [1999] ECR II-1749, para. 13; T-33/99 Méndez Pinedo v ECB [2000] ECR-SC 
I-A-63 and II-273, para. 32 
3. The general scope of a measure is not called into question by the possibility of 
determining more or less precisely the number or even the identity of the persons 
to whom it applies at a given time, where such application takes effect by virtue of 
an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in the light of its 
purpose. 
I-A - 68 
DUNNETT AND OTHERS v EIB 
Thus, even if the staff of the European Investment Bank constitute a limited 
category, that does not make it possible to consider the decision by which the 
Management Committee of the EIB decides to abolish the system of special 
conversion rates, which is a decision intended to produce legal effects with regard 
to a group of persons, that is to say, those staff, on a general and abstract basis, as 
a bundle of individual decisions. It follows that that decision cannot be the subject 
of a direct action by those staff. 
(see paras 61-62) 
See: 6/68 Zuckerfabrik Watensiedt v Council [1968] ECR 409, 415; T-14/91 Weyrich v 
Commission [1991] ECR II-235, para. 46; T-72/92 Benzler v Commission [1993] ECR 
II-347, para. 20; T-13/93 Cordier v Commission [1993] ECR II-1215, para. 54; T-482/93 
Weber v Commission [1996] ECR II-609, para. 62 
4. It is clear from the first paragraph of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations of the 
European Investment Bank and from Article 24 of the Convention on the 
Representation of the Staff of the EIB that the college of staff representatives must 
be consulted on any proposal which the administration intends to submit to the 
Management Committee concerning inter alia remuneration. 
That being so, Article 24 of the Convention merely enshrines a general principle of 
labour law common to the laws of the Member States, which is applicable under 
Article 44 of the EIB Staff Regulations, to the contracts concluded between the EIB 
and its staff, according to which an employer can unilaterally withdraw a financial 
advantage which he has freely granted to his employees on a continuous basis only 
after consultation of those employees or their representatives. 
I-A - 69 
SUMMARY — CASE T-192/99 
Accordingly, even though the benefit which EIB staff derived from the system of 
special conversion rates did not form part of their remuneration within the meaning 
of Annex I to the Convention as referred to in Article 24 thereof, the fact remains 
that the EIB was bound to consult staff representatives under that general principle 
of labour law before taking the decision to withdraw the advantage in question, 
since, in abolishing that system, the EIB was unilaterally withdrawing from its staff 
a financial advantage freely granted on a continuous basis. 
However, the consultation of staff representatives which the EIB is obliged to 
organise under that general principle of labour law common to all the Member 
States in no way implies that those representatives have a right of co-decision on 
any abolition of a financial benefit such as that derived from the system of special 
conversion rates. The right to be consulted leaves the managerial prerogative of the 
employer intact. However such consultation must be such as to have an influence 
on the substance of the measure adopted, which implies that it must be 'timely' and 
'bona fide'. 
(see paras 82, 84-86, 89-90) 
See: 165/87 Commission v Council [1988] ECR 5545, para. 20; Opinion of Advocate 
General Léger in C-21/94 Parliament v Council [1995] ECR I-1827, I-1830, point 25; 
C-392/95 Parliament v Council [1997] ECR I-3213, para. 22 
I-A - 70