Case T-765/21: Judgment of the General Court of 27 September 2023 — Imdea Materiales v Commission (Arbitration clause — Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) — Grant agreement — ‘Compound Semiconductors for 3D integration’ project — Repayment of sums paid — Payment of damages — European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) investigation report — Debit notes — Eligible costs — Reality of the costs — Reliability of timesheets — Alternative evidence — Proportionality)
Date: 2023-09-27
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: EU aid, European Anti-fraud Office, Framework Programme for Research and Development, contract terms, damages, debt, financial aid, principle of proportionality, reimbursement of aid








C_202300977EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
Series C













C/2023/977


27.11.2023





Judgment of the General Court of 27 September 2023 — Imdea Materiales v Commission
(Case T-765/21) (1)

(Arbitration clause - Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) - Grant agreement - ‘Compound Semiconductors for 3D integration’ project - Repayment of sums paid - Payment of damages - European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) investigation report - Debit notes - Eligible costs - Reality of the costs - Reliability of timesheets - Alternative evidence - Proportionality)
(C/2023/977)
Language of the case: Spanish

Parties


Applicant: Fundación Imdea Materiales (Madrid, Spain) (represented by: P. Suárez Fernández, J. Salinas Casado and Z. Marcos Vaquero, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission (represented by: J. Estrada de Solà and J. Baquero Cruz, acting as Agents)

Re:

By its action under Article 272 TFEU, the applicant seeks, in essence, first, a finding that the European Commission, by not having forwarded it, by the letter of 18 March 2021 in which it set out the findings of the report of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), described the assessment that it had carried out on the basis of those findings and specified the measures that it planned to adopt as a consequence (‘the pre-information letter’), the documents allowing it ‘to have a fair procedure that complies with the principles of commutativity and equivalence of contractual benefits’, infringed Article II.22.5 of the general terms and conditions of the Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) and that the Commission be required to resume the procedure for the recovery of the sums paid at the stage of the transmission of its observations and to grant it access to the investigation file and a confidential version of OLAF’s report including the annexes thereto and, secondly, that it be declared that the two measures referred to in the letter of 8 October 2021, in which the Commission concluded that the applicant had not provided information that could change the assessment set out in the pre-information letter, were unfounded and, in the alternative, that a new calculation of the amount of the first debt be made and that the second debt should be declared unfounded.

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:






1.


Dismisses the action;










2.


Orders Fundación Imdea Materiales to pay the costs.






(1)  
            OJ C 73, 14.2.2022.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2023/977/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)