Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2003:135
Date: 2003-05-07
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Reports;Promotion
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Action for damages - successful

SUMMARY — CASE T-278/01 
Summary 
1. Officials - Reports procedure - Staff report - Drawing up - Delay -
Irregularity not capable of leading to annulment 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 
2. Officials - Reports procedure - Staff report - Judicial review - Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 
3. Officials - Reports procedure - Staff report - Drawing up - Delay - Breach 
of administrative duty giving rise to non-material damage 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 
4. Officials - Reports procedure - Staff report - Drawing up - Time-limit -
Mandatory nature of the time-limits set by an institution's internal rules 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 
5. Officials - Promotion - Consideration of comparative merits - Consideration 
of staff reports - Incomplete personal fide - Irregularity remediable by the 
existence of other information relating to the official's merits - Conditions 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 43 and 45) 
1. In the absence of exceptional circumstances, a staff report cannot be annulled on 
the sole ground that it was drawn up late. Although delay in drawing up a staff 
report is capable of giving the official concerned a right to a remedy, such delay 
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DEN HAMER v COMMISSION 
cannot affect the validity of the staff report or, in consequence, justify the 
annulment thereof. 
(see para 32) 
See: T-15/96 Liao v Council [1997) ECR-SC I-A-329 and II-897, paras 34 and 35, and 
the case-law cited 
2. Assessors enjoy a very wide discretion when judging the work of persons upon 
whom they must report. It is not for the Community judicature, save in the case of 
manifest errors as to the facts or misuse of powers, to review the merits of the 
assessment made of the occupational abilities of an official, where it involves 
complex value judgments which, by their very nature, are not amenable to objective 
verification. 
(see para 58) 
See: T-187/01 Mellone v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I-A-81 and II-389, para 51, and 
the case-law cited 
3. The absence, as a result of a breach of administrative duty, of the periodic report 
from an official's personal file is capable of giving rise to non-material damage 
entitling him to compensation if his career could have been affected thereby or if 
that fact resulted in his being put in an uncertain or anxious frame of mind with 
regard to his future. 
(see para 82) 
See: T-78/96 and T-170/96 W v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-239 and II-745. para 
233 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-278/01 
4. The case-law granting the Commission, in the light of the wording of Article 43 
of the Staff Regulations, a reasonable period in which to draw up staff reports for 
its officials cannot apply where rules that are binding on the Commission make the 
conduct of the reports procedure subject to specific time-limits. 
(see para. 88) 
5. The periodic report constitutes an indispensable criterion of assessment each time 
the official's career is taken into consideration by the administration. Although, in 
exceptional circumstances, the absence of a periodic report may be compensated for 
by the existence of other information on an official's merits, such other information 
must meet certain conditions and it is for the defendant institution to show that they 
have been satisfied. In any event, a periodic report which is not final and is disputed 
by the official concerned cannot, of itself, serve as a source of such other 
information. 
(see para. 95) 
See: T-202/99 Rappe v Commission [2000] ECR-SC I-A-201 and II-911, paras 38, 40, 
52 and 56 
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