Order — ECLI:EU:F:2015:146
Date: 2015-12-07
Language of the case: French
Court formation: First Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

Summary 1. Actions brought by officials — Prior administrative complaint — Time-limits — Claim barred by lapse of time — Reopening — Condition — Judgments annulling a measure — Res judicata — New and material fact (Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 2. Officials — Equal treatment — Concept — Commission’s decision to grant the expatriation allowance to former parliamentary assistants from the date of publication of the administrative information — Breach of the principle of equal treatment — None 1. Judgments annulling a measure which are delivered by the Courts of the Union acquire the force of res judicata only in respect of the persons who were formally parties in the corresponding cases. Consequently, the legal effects of those judgments may not be relied on by officials or other Union staff who have failed to use in good time, and in accordance with the applicable legal requirements, the right to bring an action or the right to intervene guaranteed by the Staff Regulations, precisely in order to challenge an administrative act adversely affecting them. The legal effects of a judgment annulling an administrative measure of a Union institution relate solely to the parties to the case and to persons directly concerned by the annulled measure itself. Such a judgment cannot constitute a new fact capable, consequently, of reopening the time-limits for lodging a complaint or bringing an action against that administrative measure, except in respect of those persons. Nevertheless, any Union institution may, however, by a decision taken on its own initiative and in the interests of the service, decide to extend the effects of an annulling judgment to members of its staff who were not applicants in the case in question, and to recognise, where appropriate and in accordance with the applicable rules of the Staff Regulations, their entitlement to the rights or benefits arising from that judgment. That being said, a judgment annulling a measure does not constitute, in respect of a staff member who was not an applicant in the case in question, a new fact capable of obliging an institution to review, of its own motion, his right to the expatriation allowance. (see paras 33-36) See: Judgment of 21 February 1974 in Kortner and Others v Council and Others, 15/73 to 33/73, 52/73, 53/73, 57/73 to 109/73, 116/73, 117/73, 123/73, 132/73 and 135/73 to 137/73, EU:C:1974:16, paras 36 to 40 Order of 11 October 2012 in Cervelli v Commission, T‑622/11 P, EU:T:2012:538, paras 20, 21 and 25 Order of 13 February 2014 in Probst v Commission, F‑75/13, EU:F:2014:20 2. There is a breach of the principle of equal treatment where two categories of persons whose factual and legal situations are not essentially different receive different treatment or where different situations are treated in the same way. It follows that the adoption by the Commission of an administrative decision which opened for all former parliamentary assistants meeting the relevant criteria the possibility of applying to the administration for a review of their situation concerning the grant of the expatriation allowance, from the date of publication of that administrative information, does not constitute a breach of the principle of equal treatment. (see paras 43, 45) See: Judgment of 11 February 2009 in Schönberger v Parliament, F‑7/08, EU:F:2009:10, para. 45 and the case-law cited therein