JUDGMENT OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

22 October 2015

Council of the European Union

v

Erik Simpson

‛Appeals — Civil service — Officials — Advancement in grade — Classification in grade — Decision not to award the person concerned grade AD 9 after he had passed a grade AD 9 open competition — Distortion of the evidence’

Appeal:

against the judgment of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (First Chamber) of 12 December 2013 in Simpson v Council (F‑142/11, ECR-SC, EU:F:2013:201), seeking to have that judgment set aside in part.

Held:

The judgment of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (First Chamber) of 12 December 2013 in Simpson v Council (F‑142/11, ECR-SC, EU:F:2013:201) is set aside in so far as the Civil Service Tribunal annulled the decision by which the Council of the European Union refused the request of Mr Erik Simpson which sought an upgrade to grade AD 9 on the ground that he had passed Competition EPSO/AD/113/07 and in so far as it ordered the Council to pay all the costs (paragraphs 1 and 3 of the operative part of that judgment). The case is referred back to the Civil Service Tribunal. The costs are reserved.

Summary

Appeal — Grounds — Incorrect assessment of the facts and evidence — Inadmissibility — General Court’s review of the assessment of the facts and evidence — Possible only where the evidence has been distorted — Jurisdiction of the General Court to assess the facts accepted by the Civil Service Tribunal in the context of its review of compliance with the duty to provide a statement of reasons

(Art. 257 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 11(1))

The Civil Service Tribunal has exclusive jurisdiction, first, to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it and, secondly, to assess those facts. The assessment of the facts is not therefore, other than in cases where the evidence produced before the Civil Service Tribunal has been distorted, a question of law which is subject, as such, to review by the General Court

Moreover, the General Court’s review of the legality of a decision in the context of an appeal must necessarily take into consideration the facts on which the Civil Service Tribunal based its conclusion as to the adequacy or inadequacy of the statement of reasons.

In addition, as regards distortion of the evidence, such distortion must be obvious from the documents on the Court’s file, without there being any need to carry out a new assessment of the facts and the evidence, and without recourse to new evidence.

(see paras 27, 29, 31)

See:

Judgments of 20 November 1997 in Commission v V, C‑188/96 P, ECR, EU:C:1997:554, para. 24 and the case-law cited; of 28 May 1998 in New Holland Ford v Commission, C‑8/95 P, ECR, EU:C:1998:257, para. 72; of 6 April 2006 in General Motors v Commission, C‑551/03 P, ECR, EU:C:2006:229, para. 54; and of 10 July 2008 in Bertelsmann and Sony Corporation of America v Impala, C‑413/06 P, ECR, EU:C:2008:392, para. 30

Judgments of 24 October 2011 in P v Parliament, T‑213/10 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2011:617, paras 47 and 48 and the case law cited, and of 8 October 2013 in Council v AY, T‑167/12 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2013:524, para. 25