Case T-183/25: Action brought on 17 March 2025 – Lukoil v Parliament and Others
Date: 2025-03-17
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: abuse of power, code of conduct, discrimination on the basis of nationality, equal treatment, general legal principle, information system, interest group, interinstitutional agreement, principle of proportionality, transparency in decision-making








C_202503299EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/3299


24.6.2025






Action brought on 17 March 2025 – Lukoil v Parliament and Others


(Case T-183/25)

(C/2025/3299)
Language of the case: French

Parties


Applicant: Oil Company ‘Lukoil’ PAO (Moscow, Russia) (represented by: B. Lebrun and C. Alter, lawyers)

Defendants: European Parliament, Council of the European Union, European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul, on the basis of Article 263 TFEU, the decision of the Secretariat of the Transparency Register (‘the Secretariat’) Ares(2025)456081 of 21 January 2025 refusing to reassess the applicant’s eligibility for registration in the transparency register and thereby excluding it from the transparency register;










—


order the defendants to pay all of the costs.





Pleas in law and main arguments

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






1.


First plea in law, alleging infringement of the obligation to state reasons and failure to comply with the principle of sound administration. The applicant alleges that the contested decision has infringed the obligation to state reasons and has failed to comply with the general principle of EU law of sound administration, in so far as the contested decision results in excluding PAO Lukoil from the transparency register by incorrectly relying on the conditions for reopening an investigation set out in point 7.4 of Annex III to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 20 May 2021 between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission on a mandatory transparency register (1) (‘the Interinstitutional Agreement’) and by disregarding the conditions of point 7.1 of Annex III which sets out the content of a formal decision to close an investigation. In so doing, the Secretariat did not take into account the information submitted by the applicant on the absence of infringement of point (e) of the code of conduct.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging infringement of the internal rules of procedure, inasmuch as the contested decision, first, contradicts the decision of 23 June 2023 of the Secretariat which had already reopened the investigations under the terms of points 7.3 and 7.4 of Annex III to the Interinstitutional Agreement, second, fails to comply with the obligation to carry out a new investigation and to draft a report taking into account all of the information provided by the application (point 4.5 of Annex III) and lastly, fails to comply with the obligation to state reasons for its decision to close the investigation and to indicate in it the mandatory information which it should have contained (point 7.1 of Annex III).










3.


Third plea in law, alleging a manifest error of assessment of the facts of the case, inasmuch as the contested decision, first, disregards the reopening of the investigation already accepted on 23 June 2023 by the Secretariat and, second, confuses the conditions for reopening an investigation with the information that must be taken into account in a formal decision following a new investigation. The conditions that allow the investigation to be reopened, in accordance with point 7.4 of Annex III, refer to information that existed prior to the first decision of 6 March 2023 and that was not taken into account by the Secretariat. They are different from the information to be taken into account as part of an investigation relating to eligibility for the transparency register, which concerns all of the relevant information without any time limit.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging failure to comply with the principle of equality and of non-discrimination. The applicant complains that the Secretariat has failed to comply with the general principle of equality and of non-discrimination inasmuch as the contested decision proceeded from an investigation conducted because the applicant belonged to an industrial group of Russian origin, which constitutes discrimination on grounds of nationality.










5.


Fifth plea in law, alleging failure to comply with the principle of proportionality, inasmuch as the contested decision, not being based on any fact or circumstantial evidence, does not achieve the objective provided for by point (e) of the code of conduct, that is to say, to defend the reputation of the transparency register, even though the Secretariat of the transparency register had available to it other measures which were just as effective and less prejudicial to the applicant’s rights.










6.


Sixth plea in law, alleging misuse of powers inasmuch as the contested decision is guided by objectives which are unrelated to the ratio legis of the code of conduct and point (e) thereof.






(1)  
            OJ 2021 L 207, p. 1



ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3299/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)