CELEX: C1995/208/69
Language: en
Date: 1995-08-12 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 1 June 1995 by Karl Fingerhut against the Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities (Case T-124/95)

12 . 8 . 95           EN                  Official Journal of the European Communities                              No C 208/33
Instance of the European Communities on 24 May 1995 by               systematic deduction of sums from his salary by way of
Daniel Chabert, residing at Kraainem ( Belgium ),                    repayment of the sum unduly paid .
represented by Georges Vandersanden, of the Brussels Bar,
with an address for service in Luxembourg at the offices of
Fiduciaire Myson Sari, 1 Rue Glesener.
The applicant claims that the Court should :
                                                                     Action brought on 1 June 1995 by Karl Fingerhut against
— annul the decision of the Commission of 6 October 1994             the Council of the European Union and the Commission of
    ordering the applicant to repay, in monthly instalments,                          the European Communities
    the sum of Bfrs 215 354 in respect of sums unduly                                      ( Case T-124/95 )
    paid ,                                                                                    ( 95/C 208/69 )
— order the repayment of the sums compulsorily deducted                            (Language of the case: German)
    by the Commission from the applicant's salary since
    November 1994 , together with default interest at the
    annual rate of 8 % ,                                             An action against the Council of the European Union and
                                                                     the Commission of the European Communities was brought
— order the defendant to pay all of the costs .                      before the Court of First Instance of the European
                                                                     Communities on 1 June 1995 by Karl Fingerhut,
                                                                     Twistetal-Gembeck ( Federal Republic of Germany ),
Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:                  represented by Bernd Meisterernst, Mechtild Düsing,
                                                                     Dietrich Manstetten, Frank Schulze and Winfried
The applicant states that, following his divorce, which was          Haneklaus , Rechtsanwälte, Münster, with an address for
pronounced on 1 February 1984 , he requested the                     service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Dupong &
administration to pay to his former wife the sum which               Associés, 14a Rue des Bains .
would have been due to her if she had been the person
entitled to receive the household allowance, namely 5 % of
her basic salary, with the balance being paid into the               The applicant claims that the Court should :
applicant's account; the administration carried out that
request, without objection, from 1 March 1 984 . For ten and         1 . order the defendants jointly to pay to the applicant
a half years, from March 1984 to October 1994, the                       SLOM III compensation for the period from
applicant was thus paid a sum, appearing on his salary slip              15 December 1985 to 29 July 1993 in the amount of
as the household allowance , which was deemed to represent               DM 43 929,06 , together with interest thereon at 8 %
the difference between the household allowance paid to his               from 19 May 1992 , and jointly to pay the costs of the
                                                                         proceedings;
former wife, corresponding to 5 % of her salary, and the
balance due to the applicant. It subsequently transpired that
the Commission did not, during that period , adjust that part        2 . join the present action to that already pending in Case
                                                                         T-77/93 Hülseberg and Others v. Council and
of the allowance which was payable to the applicant's
former wife in line with the alterations in her salary; thus             Commission and also stay the proceedings .
although the allowance was increased in line with the salary
increases of the applicant's former wife, it was paid to her on      Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
an unchanging basis only, and the applicant consequently
received a residual sum which grew progressively. The                The pleas in law and arguments are identical to those in Case
                                                                     T-20/95 .
payment was thus indeed irregular, but that irregularity was
entirely due to the defendant and the applicant was not
aware of it .
The applicant bases his case on a single plea , namely,
infringement of Article 85 of the Staff Regulations . The
defendant maintains that it is appropriate in the present case       Action brought on 5 June 1995 by Hassan Belhanbel against
for the undue payment to be recovered , because the                        the Commission of the European Communities
irregularity of the payment was 'patent'. The applicant                                    ( Case T-125/95 )
denies that contention, maintaining that, even if he had                                     ( 95/C 208/70 )
become aware of an increase in the sum paid to him in
respect of the allowance — which he did not — he would
have been legitimately entitled to assume that the amount of                        (Language of the case: French)
that allowance had been increased by an amount greater
than the increase in his former wife's salary, since he was not      An action against the Commission of the European
aware of the extent to which that salary had risen; the error        Communities was brought before the Court of First
on the part of the administration was not, therefore,                Instance on 5 June 1995 by Hassan Belhanbel, of Namur,
patently such that the applicant could not have been                 Belgium,    represented      by Jean-Noel Louis, Thierry
unaware of it. Consequently, the applicant considers that            Demaseure and Ariane Tornel, of the Brussels Bar, with an
the defendant has misapplied Article 85 of the Staff                 adress for service in Luxembourg at the office of Fiduciaire
Regulations and that it has acted unlawfully in ordering the         Myson Sari, 1 Rue Glesener.