ORDER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (First Chamber)

10 October 2007

Case F-17/07

Michel Pouzol

v

Court of Auditors of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Pensions – Transfer of pension rights acquired before entry into the service of the Communities – Inadmissibility)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Pouzol seeks, in particular, annulment of the Court of Auditors’ decision of 23 November 2006 rejecting his complaint of 16 April 2006 in which he sought the recalculation of the additional years of pensionable service resulting from the transfer of the pension rights he had acquired in France, together with annulment of the Commission’s decision of 18 May 2006 stating that the method used to calculate his transferred pension rights was consistent with the provisions of the Staff Regulations as amended by Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 723/2004 of 22 March 2004 (OJ 2004 L 124, p. 1).

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. Each party is ordered to bear its own costs.

Summary

1. Officials – Actions – Prior administrative complaint – Complaint against an act adopted by an institution other than the official’s institution of employment

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2) and 91(2))

2. Officials – Pensions – Pension rights acquired before entry into the service of the Communities – Transfer to the Community scheme

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91; Annex VIII, Art. 11(2))

1. In a particular situation, which may arise in connection with the transfer of pension rights, where it is necessary for an institution other than the official’s institution of employment to deal with a matter concerning him, if the official in question considers that that other institution has adopted an act adversely affecting him, he must address his complaint to the appointing authority of that institution.

(see para. 45)

2. The communication, by the administration, to an official who has requested the transfer of pension rights acquired before he entered the service of the Communities of a note informing him of the additional years of pensionable service to be taken into account in the Community scheme in respect of the transferred rights constitutes a unilateral act which does not call for any other measure on the part of the competent institution and which adversely affects the official concerned.

Although such proposals for the transfer of pension rights come into force in an unusual manner, that does not affect the conditions in which an official who is not satisfied with the additional years of pension rights proposed may contest those decisions, by lodging a complaint and then, if necessary, an appeal under the conditions laid down in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations.

Furthermore, the fact that the administration withdraws such a proposal for the transfer of pension rights in order to replace it with another in no way proves that the proposal withdrawn was not an act adversely affecting the official in question and effective against him, against which he had to use the means of redress provided for in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations.

(see paras 52-54)

See:

T-96/02 McBryan v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑305 and II‑1449, paras 18 to 20

F-100/05 Chatziioannidou v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I-A-1-129 and II‑A‑1‑487, paras 15 and 16, currently the subject of an appeal before the Court of First Instance, T‑20/07 P