Order — ECLI:EU:T:2003:352
Date: 2003-12-18
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Act adversely affecting the official;Conditions of admissibility;Obligations of the administration
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Staff cases - inadmissible;Action for damages - inadmissible

SUMMARY — CASE T-215/02 
Summary 
1. Officials - Actions — Act adversely affecting an official - Definition -
Preparatory act - Decision to initiate administrative inquiries - Inadmissible 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
2. Officials - Duty of the administration to provide assistance - Scope — Public 
and personal defamation of an official in press articles - Obligation to adopt the 
measures necessary to restore the good name of the official — Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 24) 
3. Officials - Actions - Action for damages - Action invoking the duty of the 
administration jointly and severally to make good damage caused to an official by 
a third party - Admissibility - Conditions - Obligation for the official concerned 
to apply first to the national courts in order to obtain compensation from the person 
who caused the damage 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 24, second para, and Art. 91) 
1. The existence of an act adversely affecting a person within the meaning of 
Articles 90(2) and 91(1) of the Staff Regulations is a mandatory condition for the 
admissibility of any action brought by officials against the institution by which they 
are employed. Only measures which produce binding legal effects capable of 
directly and immediately affecting the applicant's interests by significantly altering 
his legal situation constitute acts or decisions against which actions for annulment 
may be brought. As regards staff cases, acts preparatory to a decision do not 
adversely affect the applicant and therefore can only be contested incidentally in an 
appeal against measures capable of being annulled. Although some purely 
preparatory measures may adversely affect an official inasmuch as they may 
influence the content of a subsequent challengeable act, those measures cannot be 
the subject of a separate action and must be challenged in support of an action 
brought against that act. 
I-A - 346 
GOMEZ REINO v COMMISSION 
Decisions of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) to open or to re-open an 
administrative inquiry, its investigations into the administration's conduct of an 
internal inquiry concerning an official, and OLAF's forwarding to the administration 
of the report concluding the inquiry and containing the conclusions and 
recommendations of OLAF's director merely constitute measures preparing the way 
for a decision of the appointing authority. The same is true of, on the one hand, 
OLAF's refusal to notify the official concerned of certain acts relating to an internal 
inquiry allegedly conducted against him and to allow him to defend himself as part 
of that inquiry, and, on the other hand, the decision by the institution itself to 
institute and to conduct an internal inquiry. 
(see paras 46-47, 50, 53. 55) 
See: 32/68 Grasselli v Commission [1969] ECR 505. paras 4 to 7; 17/78 Deshormes v 
Commission [1979] ECR 189, para. 10; 346/87 Bossi v Commission [1989] ECR 303, 
para. 23: T-20/92 Moat v Commission [1993] ECR II-799. para. 39; T-391/94 Baiwir v 
Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-269 and II-787. para. 34; T-293/94 Vela Palacios v ESC 
[1996] ECR-SC I-A-305 and II-893. para. 22 
2. The administration has, on the one hand, a discretion in the choice of the ways 
and means of implementing Article 24 of the Staff Regulations and, on the other 
hand, a duty, particularly when faced with serious and unfounded accusations, to 
take the necessary and appropriate steps, pursuant to the same article, to restore the 
good name of an official whose professional integrity has been called into question. 
I-A - 347 
SUMMARY — CASE T-215/02 
Where there has been alleged public and personal defamation of an official in press 
articles whose primary target was the institution itself, the official, in accordance 
with his duty to act in good faith which covers all relations between himself and the 
institution, must give the institution the right to defend his reputation in a way 
which does not harm the institution's own interests. 
(see paras 62, 73) 
See: T-59/92 Caronna v Commission [1993] ECR II-1129, paras 64, 65 and 92, and the 
case-law cited; T-34/96 and T-163/96 Connolly v Commission [1999] ECR-SC I-A-87 and 
II-463, para. 130 
3. An action for damages brought by an official invoking the obligation of the 
administration under the second paragraph of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations 
jointly and severally to compensate an official for damage suffered by reason of his 
position or duties at the hands of a third party, may be declared admissible only if 
the official in question has not first been able to obtain compensation from the 
person who caused the damage, if necessary through the national courts. 
(see para. 82) 
See: Caronna v Commission, cited earlier, paras 31 to 33 
I-A - 348