Information;Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2020:442
Date: 2020-09-23
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

Action brought on 28 September 2018 – ZL v EUIPO (Case T-596/18) Language of the case: English Parties Applicant: ZL (represented by: E. Fontes Vila, lawyer) Defendant: European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) Form of order sought The applicant claims that the Court should: annul the decision of 1 December 2017 of the selection board for open competition EUIPO/AD/01/17 which indicated the applicant’s results in that competition and confirmed that she had not been placed on the ‘reserve list’ of successful candidates; annul, on a subsidiary basis, as connected decisions, the following: first, the decision of 7 March 2018 of the selection board by which it replied to the applicant’s request for review and confirmed the decision of 1 December 2017; second, the decision of 27 June 2018 of the appointing authority which rejected the applicant’s complaint of 7 June 2018 and confirmed the decision of 1 December 2017; order the defendant to pay the costs. Pleas in law and main arguments In support of the action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law. First plea in law, alleging the lack of sufficient legal reasoning and supporting documents in all the correspondence and decisions received from EPSO and/or EUIPO with regard to the open competition in question, in that the applicant could not ascertain whether or not the decisions adversely affecting her were well founded and subject to judicial review, therefore creating legal uncertainty and leaving the applicant defenceless before the administration. Second plea in law, alleging (i) infringement of the applicant’s fundamental rights to good administration and access to documents (Article 41 and 42 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; Article 15 of the TFEU; Article 2(1) of Regulation No 1049/2001 1 ) and of the horizontal principle of transparency, in that the applicant’s access to the disputed questions of the verbal reasoning multiple-choice computer-based tests was denied by the appointing authority by claiming that the applicant’s allegation challenging the relevance and validity of the said questions was too general but without grounding the specific motives of not meeting the case-law conditions for not granting them; and (ii) infringement of the applicant’s right of defence, in that the request of the appointing authority that the disputed questions be challenged in more detail is impracticable for the applicant, creating a particular vulnerability in terms of having to provide an impossible proof. Third plea in law, alleging infringement of the applicant’s right of defence and of the principles of merit and capacity in the competition in question, transparency in the free access to public service, and of fair and equal treatment, in that the applicant could not allege a material irregularity of the disputed questions based on their poor or erroneous formulation (e.g. translation problems) after obtaining her competition results. A candidate should always be able to challenge the fact of having been subject to material errors in questions at any point of the competition process, particularly following the release of the results. The applicant further argues that poor translations could place candidates who choose the source language of the verbal computer-based tests at a clear advantage. Fourth plea in law, alleging that the contested decision of 1 December 2017 is vitiated by a manifest error in the competition process, in that the disputed questions of the verbal reasoning computer-based tests were subject to a material irregularity. ____________ 1 Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).