ORDER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(First Chamber)

20 March 2014

Case F‑84/10 DEP

Efstratios Chatzidoukakis

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Procedure — Taxation of costs)

Application: for taxation of costs pursuant to Article 92(1) of the Rules of Procedure, by the European Commission, following the judgment of 5 June 2012 in Case F‑84/10 Chatzidoukakis v Commission (‘the judgment of 5 June 2012’).

Held: The total amount of the costs to be repaid by Mr Chatzidoukakis to the European Commission in respect of recoverable costs in Case F‑84/10 is fixed at EUR 2 555.50, together with default interest from the date of service of the present order to the date of actual payment, at the rate fixed by the European Central Bank for its main refinancing operations and applicable during the period concerned, increased by 2 points.

Summary

1. Judicial proceedings — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — Definition — Expenses necessarily incurred by the parties — External translation costs relating to translations of procedural documents submitted by the EU institutions — Not included

(Council Regulation No 1, Art. 1; Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 91(b))

2. Judicial proceedings — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — Expenses necessarily incurred by the parties — Fees paid by an institution to its lawyer — Included — Elements to be taken into consideration for the purposes of taxation

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 19, first para., and Annex I, Art. 7(1); Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Arts 144(b) and 145(1))

1. It follows from Article 91(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal that recoverable costs are limited, first, to those incurred for the purpose of the proceedings before the Civil Service Tribunal and, second, to those which were necessary for that purpose.

In that regard, external translation costs relating to translations of procedural documents submitted to the Civil Service Tribunal by the EU institutions may not be regarded as expenses necessary for the purpose of the proceedings and therefore as recoverable costs. The institutions are required to produce translations of all their procedural documents. That requirement imposed on the Union institutions by the Rules of Procedure stems from the fact that they operate in a multilingual environment and have all the human resources they need to produce translations of procedural documents in all the languages referred to in Article 1 of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community. Those costs may not be charged to officials, who are entitled to choose the language of the case and who would therefore suffer discrimination if they had to bear that expense. Furthermore, a lawyer is not required to translate documents, but his fees must reflect the work he carries out as a lawyer in assisting and representing his client.

(see paras 20, 32)

See:

26 November 2004, C‑198/02 P (R)-DEP EIB v De Nicola, para. 21

26 April 2010, F‑7/08 DEP Schönberger v Parliament, para. 23

2. As is apparent from the first paragraph of Article 19 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, applicable before the Civil Service Tribunal pursuant to Article 7(1) of Annex I to that Statute, the institutions are free to have recourse to the assistance of a lawyer. The latter’s remuneration is therefore covered by the concept of expenses necessarily incurred for the purposes of the proceedings, without the institution being required to show that such assistance is objectively warranted.

Concerning the determination of the amount of recoverable lawyer’s fees, the Union judicature is not empowered to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers but it may determine the amount of those fees which may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs. When ruling on an application for taxation of costs, it is not obliged to take account of any national scales of lawyers’ fees or any agreement in that regard between the party concerned and his agents or advisers.

In the absence of Union provisions laying down fee scales, the court must make an unfettered assessment of the facts of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Union law, the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the case for the agents or advisers involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.

Likewise, the amount of the institution’s lawyer’s fees that are recoverable cannot be evaluated without taking into consideration the work carried out, even before the matter was brought before the Tribunal, by the legal services of the institution. Since the admissibility of an action is subject to the prior introduction of a complaint and its rejection by the appointing authority, the legal services of the institution are in principle involved in dealing with disputes even before such disputes are brought before the Tribunal.

As regards the scale of the work involved in the proceedings before the Tribunal, the court must take account of the total number of hours of work capable of being judged objectively necessary for the purpose of those proceedings.

(see paras 21-24, 29)

See:

23 March 2012, T‑498/09 P-DEP Kerstens v Commission, para. 20; 28 May 2013, T‑278/07 P-DEP Marcuccio v Commission, para. 14

10 November 2009, F‑14/08 DEP X v Parliament, para. 22; Schönberger v Parliament, paras 24 and 29; 27 September 2011, F‑55/08 DEP De Nicola v EIB, paras 41 and 42