Case T-99/18: Action brought on 19 February 2018 — Stamatopoulos v ENISA
Date: 2018-02-19
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: European official, competition (EU), equal treatment, indemnification, job vacancy, legality, right to justice, transparency in decision-making








C_2018134EN.01003401.xml










16.4.2018   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 134/34





Action brought on 19 February 2018 — Stamatopoulos v ENISA
(Case T-99/18)
(2018/C 134/49)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Applicant: Grigorios Stamatopoulos (Athens, Greece) (represented by: S. Pappas, lawyer)

Defendant: European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA)

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul the ENISA HR Team decision of 25/07/2017, with which the applicant’s application for the position of Head of Finance and Procurement at ENISA pursuant to the vacancy notice ‘ENISA-TA16-AD-2017-03’, was rejected, so that the Agency repeats the evaluation of the applicant’s candidacy in a fair and transparent way;










—


order the defendant to compensate the applicant for the moral damage he suffered from the illegalities vitiating the contested act with an amount of at least five thousand (5 000) euros; and










—


order the defendant to bear its costs as well as the applicant’s costs for the current proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

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






1.


With the first plea, the applicant claims that the contested act violates the defendant’s duty to state reasons, as it lacks sufficient reasoning for the rejection of his candidacy. While ENISA provided the applicant with his score for each selection criterion and his total score, the evaluation of all the candidates was comparative in nature and thus the points awarded to each applicant were the result of such a comparative analysis. The applicant thus contends that, in view of the fact that ENISA failed to communicate to him a specific reasoning for the points awarded to him for each criterion, including the comparative advantages of the successful candidates who advanced to the interviews and tests stage, it failed to provide a sufficient reasoning that would allow the applicant to ascertain whether the act adversely affecting him was well founded and whether it was appropriate to bring proceedings before the Tribunal and, secondly, to enable the Tribunal to review the legality of the act.










2.


With the second plea, the applicant contends that the Selection Committee’s evaluation of his abilities was vitiated by a manifest error of assessment, particularly in the evaluation of the selection criteria: ‘High degree of organisational skills, accuracy and ability to analyse, compile and summarize complex financial information’; ‘Excellent negotiation and problem-solving skills’; ‘Strong ability to manage people and conflicts’; ‘Strong communication skills in English both orally and in writing’; and ‘Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and to meet programmatic deadlines consistently regardless of working environment’s changes’.










3.


With the third plea, the applicant contends that the contested act violates the principles of equal treatment and transparency. As the threshold set by the Selection Committee for the candidates’ advancing to the round of interviews and tests was determined in an arbitrary and unlawful manner. The applicant contends that the vacancy notice did not contain any conditions regarding when the threshold would be set and what criteria the Selection Committee would have to take into consideration for determining it. Accordingly, the Selection Committee never provided any reasoning as to how it determined its level and communicated it to the candidates only after the conclusion of the evaluation.










4.


Finally, in view of the above illegalities, the applicant requests a compensation for the moral damage he suffered from participating in the flawed and unlawful procedure and from the lack of justification of his rejection, which can only be considered as a complete lack of respect for him and disregard for his right to having a fair administration.