Case T-831/14: Action brought on 24 December 2014 — Alfamicro v Commission
Date: 2014-12-24
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: audit, co-financing, principle of legal certainty, principle of proportionality, project evaluation








C_2015073EN.01004201.xml










2.3.2015   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 73/42






Action brought on 24 December 2014 — Alfamicro v Commission
(Case T-831/14)
(2015/C 073/54)
Language of the case: Portuguese

Parties


Applicant: Alfamicro — Sistemas de Computadores, Sociedade Unipessoal, Lda (Cascais, Portugal) (represented by: G. Gentil Anastácio and D. Pirra Xarepe, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the General Court should:






—


Annul the Commission’s decision of 28 October 2014, adopted in the context of the implementation of Financial Audit 12-DAS-03, concerning Grant Agreement No 238882, with all legal consequences arising therefrom, in particular annulling the debit note included in it, for the amount of EUR 467 131, and issuing credit for the same amount in favour of the applicant.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging infringement of the principle of proportionality. In the context of the Save Energy project, the applicant and the Commission concluded a Grant Agreement for the purpose of co-financing that project. The applicant claims that it met all the objectives of that the project and that the Commission, in the abovementioned decision of 28 October 2014 (‘the contested decision’), only considered formal aspects of a purely accounting and documentary nature, without taking into account the results obtained. Returning the amount demanded constitutes an excessive burden, having regard to the fact that the applicant is an SME, and limits the applicant’s freedom of action, thereby clearly breaching the principle of proportionality.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging breach of the principles of legitimate expectations and good administration. First, the Commission never objected to the working method adopted by the applicant during the 32 months that the project was carried out. The applicant inferred from this behaviour that the Commission approved of the elements that were provided to it, so that the contested decision seriously undermines legal certainty. Secondly, by failing to detect in time the irregularities alleged in the contested decision, the Commission led the applicant to believe that its behaviour was correct. The conviction thus engendered should be protected under the principle of legitimate expectations, so that the Commission failed to fulfil its duty of supervision and, therefore, its duty of good administration.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging breach of contract, due to serious errors of assessment made by the Commission, since it disregarded the clarifications and arguments put forward by the applicant and made an incorrect assessment of the documentation and information duly submitted by it. By adopting the contested decision, the Commission infringed the terms agreed in the Grant Agreement. The applicant considers that it was demonstrated, throughout its communications with the Commission, that the contractual provisions had been fulfilled and that the requirements for obtaining financing under the Save Energy project had been met.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging breach of the duty to state reasons, given that the reasoning set out in the Commission’s decision is extremely succinct and neither describes nor lists the facts or actions that were the subject of investigation and analysis.