Case T-104/15: Action brought on 25 February 2015 — Militos Symvouleftiki/Commission
Date: 2015-02-25
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: EU aid, case-law (EU), executive agency, proof, remuneration of work, service, shareholder, staff, staff regulations (EU), work contract








C_2015155EN.01003201.xml










11.5.2015   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 155/32





Action brought on 25 February 2015 — Militos Symvouleftiki/Commission
(Case T-104/15)
(2015/C 155/38)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Applicant: Militos Symvouleftiki AE (Athens, Greece) (represented by: S. Pappas, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






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annul the Commission’s Implementing Decision of 16 December 2014, rejecting as unfounded the applicant’s referral for legality review of 23 October 2014, and upholding the decision of 23 September 2014 of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, regarding the ineligibility of remuneration paid to the applicant’s partners/shareholders as staff costs in two projects successfully executed by the applicant, namely ‘Go Green — Green Business is smart Business’ project (Agreement No. 510424-LLP-1-2010-1-GR-LEONARDO-LMP) and ‘LadybizIT’ project (Agreement No. 2011-3052-518310-LLP-1-2011-1-GR-LEONARDO-LAM), and determine eligible as staff costs in the project concerned the relevant costs corresponding to the ‘additional’ services provided by Ms Olga Stavropoulou, Mr Pavlos Aravantinos, and Mr Karamanlis, or, in the alternative, determine solely the costs corresponding to the ‘additional’ services provided by Ms Olga Stavropoulou and Mr Pavlos Aravantinos in the two projects in question eligible under Article II.14 of the grant agreement and its annex III and payable to the applicant;










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order the Commission to bear its own costs and pay the costs borne by the applicant in the current proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

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






1.


First plea in law, alleging a manifest error of assessment of the Commission.






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The Commission failed to take into consideration the fact that the distinction between ‘usual’ and ‘additional’ services provided by the partners/shareholders in the context of the projects concerned could have been made in view of the nature of such services, the wording and the spirit of the provisions of the applicant’s Statutes of the time and of the provisions of the decision of 20 December 2010 of the General Assembly of the applicant’s partners/shareholders.














2.


Second plea in law, alleging a second manifest error of assessment of the Commission.






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The Commission’s consideration, according to which the capacity of the administrator as such precludes him from providing other services to the applicant under an employment contract with a genuine link of subordination, is contrary to the settled case-law of the Courts of the European Union. In any case, the applicant provided the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency and the Commission with sufficient evidence establishing that the control exerted by the project manager on the administrator was real and met the criteria set by the case-law for the existence of a genuine link of subordination.