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The dispute concerns the household allowance provided for in Article 67 (1) of the Staff Regulations of Officials. The conditions' governing the grant of that allowance are laid down in Article 1 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, paragraph (3) of which, in the version in force at the time of the events in dispute, provided that: ‘If the spouse of an official is gainfully employed, with an annual income, before deduction of tax, of more than Bfr 250000, the official entitled to the household allowance shall not receive this allowance save by special decision of the appointing authority. The official shall, however, be entitled to the allowance where the married couple have one or more dependent children’. At their meeting on 26 October 1973 the heads of administration agreed that in future the upper limit of Bfr 250000 should be weighted at the rate applicable to remuneration. Thus, on 1 November 1973, the date on which that decision came into force, the upper limit was raised to Bfr 250000 x 117 %, that is, Bfr 292000, for officials employed in Belgium. That system remained in force throughout the whole of the period during which the applicant improperly received the household allowance. The applicant, who is a Danish national, entered the service of the Commission on 1 January 1974 and from 1 December 1974 has been performing the duties of an administrative assistant in Grade B 4 at the Financing and Auditing Division of the Directorate for the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (Directorate General for Agriculture). His wife, who was also engaged by the defendant as a member of the auxiliary staff with effect from 1 February 1974, was appointed an official in Grade C 3 on 1 November of that year. On 9 November 1977 the applicant informed the administration of his divorce which had taken place on the preceding 8 August. When he received his salary statement on 15 January 1978 he found that an ‘amount to be sub sequently reimbursed’ of Bfr 96272 had been charged to him. A memorandum of 10 February 1978 from the Salaries, Pensions, Missions and Miscellaneous Allowances Division informed the applicant that that sum would be withheld at source because he had been paid the household allowance in error from 1 July 1974 to 31 December 1977. The memorandum also explained the procedure for the recovery of the sums overpaid. A second memorandum dated 27 February and signed by the Head of the Individual Rights and Privileges Division confirmed the first but stated that the recovery would be carried out only in respect of the sums paid after 1 January 1975. Up to that date the remuneration received by the applicant's wife had been paid in the form of advances which were subsequently regularized and had exceeded the maximum fixed in relation to the grant of the household allowance only through the effect of a retroactive readjustment. On 14 April 1978 the applicant submitted a complaint within the meaning of Article 90 (2) of the Staff Regulations. He complained that he had not been kept sufficiently informed as regards the implementation of the procedure for recovery. Secondly, he maintained that the conditions of application of Article 85 of the Staff Regulations were not satisfied. He stated that he had not been aware that there was no due reason for the payments and, to quote the words of Article 85 of the Staff Regulations, .stated that the overpayment had not been ‘patently such that he could not have been unaware of it’. In support of that argument he referred to the fact that he had been informed in February 1974 that he was entitled to the allowance, to the complexity of the provisions governing that question and to the fact that the Commission, which was responsible for the error, had at its disposal all the information necessary to correct it, since his wife was also employed and paid by that institution. After providing further information in writing the Commission dismissed the applicant's complaint by decision of 27 November 1978 on the ground that he was aware of the amount of remuneration received by his wife and, accordingly, knew that it exceeded the limit laid down in the relevant texts and that, in any event, an official showing an ordinary degree of care must check the payments which he receives. In the meantime on 13 November the applicant had lodged an application for the annulment of the memorandum of 27 February 1978 and of the implied decision by the Commission rejecting his complaint. The dispute concerns the allowances paid between 1 January 1975 and 31 August 1977, since the Commission has abandoned any claim to recovery in respect of the earlier period and the applicant does not contest that recovery is justified as regards the period following his divorce. If I am not mistaken the sum thus claimed amounts to Bfr 92536.