CELEX: C1996/108/25
Language: en
Date: 1996-04-13 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 1 February 1996 by Cityflyer Express Limited against the Commission of the European Communities (Case T-16/96)

13 . 4 . 96           EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                               No C 108/11
on 27 February 1996 , the operative part of which is as              invitation to tender. The reasons given for this are
 follows :                                                           inadequate and entirely baseless. The applicants observe in
                                                                     this respect that the only change in practice to the new
 1 . the application for interim measures is dismissed;              procedure consisted in the exclusion of Kolprojekt from the
                                                                     short list. At the same time, however, the successful
                                                                     undertaking was recommended to allocate to Kolprojekt the
2,    costs are reserved.                                            role of subcontractor for up to 25 % of the amount of the
                                                                     offer .
                                                                     It follows that the contested acts — the decision to annul the
                                                                     procedure published on 13 June 1995 and the decision to
                                                                     put in motion a new procedure — do not achieve any of the
Action brought on 26 January 1996 by TEAM Sri and                    objective aims of general interest. On the contrary, they lead
Centralne Biuro Projektowo-Badawcze Budownictwa                      to an unjustified delay in awarding the contract as well as to
Kolejowego ( CBBBK KOLPROJECT) against the                           serious harm for the applicant undertakings .
          Commission of the European Communities
                        ( Case T-13/96 )                            The acts in question must therefore be annulled on the
                          ( 96/C 108/24                             grounds of misuse of powers and manifest breach of the
                                                                    principle of sound administration by the Commission .
                 (Language of the case: Italian)
An action against the Commission of the European
Communities was brought before the Court of First
Instance of the European Communities on 26 January 1996
by TEAM Sri and Centralne Biuro Projektowo-Badawcze
Budownictwa Kolejowego ( CBBBK Kolprojekt), whose                   Action brought on 1 February 1996 by Cityflyer Express
registered office is at Warsaw (Poland ), represented by                  Limited against the Commission of the European
                                                                                              Communities
Antonio Tizzano and Gian Michele Roberti, of the Naples
Bar, with an address for service at 36 Place du Grand Sablon,                                Case T- 1 6/96 )
Brussels .                                                                                   ( 96/C 108/25 )
The applicant claims that the Court should :
                                                                                   (Language of the case: English)
— uphold the application for annulment of the decision of
     the Commission, contained in a letter of 16 November           An action against the Commission of the European
     1995 from the Head of Unit of the Directorate-General,         Communities was brought before the Court of First
     External Relations, Directorate B, annulling the award         Instance of the European Communities on 1 February 1996
     procedure concerning the 'Feasibility study for the            by Cityflyer Express Limited, represented by Charles Price,
     modernization of railway junction in Warsaw on the             with an address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers
     E-20 TEN line ', and the subsequent tender notice of           of Lucy Dupong, 14a, rue des Bains .
     4 December 1995 , which also concerned the 'Feasibility
     study for the modernization of railway junction in
     Warsaw on the E-20 TEN line ',                                 The applicant claims that the Court should :
— uphold the application for compensation for the harm              — annul the Commission decision of 26 July 1995
     suffered by the applicants, and                                     concerning aid granted by the Flemish Region to the
                                                                         Belgian airline Vlaamse Luchttransportmaatschappij
— order the Commission to pay the costs .                                NV,
Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:                 — order the Commission to pay the costs .
The applicants, a design company, active in Italy and
abroad, which operates in the construction, management              Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
and engineering maintenance sector, is a Polish share capital
company whose object is the provision of design services in         The applicant, an airline company registered in England,
the railway sector, complain that the defendant, instead of         which operates scheduled flights out of London Gatwick
proceeding to award the contract, notified in the context of        to Antwerp, Dublin, Diisseldorf, Guernsey, Jersey, Leeds/
the Phare programme, concerning the 'Feasibility Study for          Bradford , Newcastle and Rotterdam, challenges the
the Modernization of railway junction in Warsaw on the              Commission Decision of 26 July 1995 , concerning aid
E-20 TEN line', decided to annul the procedure and open a           granted by the Flemish Region to the Belgian airline
new procedure . The companies invited to tender in the first        Vlaamse Luchttransportmaatschappij NV (VLM), in the
procedure were included in a short list attached to the             form of an interest-free loan of Bfrs 20 million . In its
 ---pagebreak--- No C 108/12             EN I                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                      13 . 4 . 96
decision, the Commission holds that the aid is limited to the           Instance of the European Communities on 7 February 1996
interest-free element . The applicant, on the other hand,               by Stephen Pascall , residing in Brussels, represented by
considers that the aid is represented not only by the grant of          Jean-Noël Louis, Thierry Demaseure and Ariane Tornel, of
the loan on an interest-free basis but also by the full amount          the Brussels Bar, with an address for service in Luxembourg
of the loan .                                                           at the Chambers of Fiduciaire Myson SARL, 1 Rue
                                                                        Glesener .
Pleas in support of the applicant's action for annulment:
1 . The Commission Decision , in that it holds that only the            The applicant claims that the Court should :
     interest-free element and not the loan itself amounts to
     State aid, constitutes an incorrect application of                 — annul the Commission's decision of 26 June 1995
     Article 92 of the EC Treaty. It would seem that when                    withdrawing its decision of 18 October 1994 awarding
     applying the market economy investor principle, the                     the applicant an additional step ;
     Commission is of the opinion that the application of the
     principle leads to different results according to whether
     the State aid takes the form of a capital injection or a           — order the defendant to pay the costs .
     loan . This constitutes a misinterpretation of Article 92
     ( 1 ) of the Treaty .
                                                                        Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
2 . In failing to characterize the full amount of the loan as
     aid, the Commission has committed manifest errors of               The applicant states that he entered the employment of the
     assessment :                                                       Commission as a temporary agent in the scientific service on
                                                                        1 December 1986 . Following his success in an internal
     — the Belgian authorities have confirmed that the                  competition, he was appointed an official at Grade A 4,
           'loan ' was granted on an interest-free basis . This         step 4, on 6 May 1994 , with effect from 1 April 1994, and
           element in itself should have led the Commission to          was assigned to the post he had held as a temporary agent.
           conclude that the so-called loan was in fact akin to a       By decision of 18 October 1994, he was awarded an
           subsidy or at the very least was certainly not a             additional step pursuant to Article 97 ( 1 ) of the Staff
           normal loan transaction,                                     Regulations of officials of the European Communities . On
                                                                        26 June 1995 , the appointing authority decided to withdraw
     — the unusual or exceptional nature of the loan is                 that decision on the ground that, since 1 April 1994, the
           further confirmed by the fact that, on the one hand,         applicant no longer belonged to the scientific or technical
           the loan was granted on a totally unsecured basis            services of the Community .
           and, on the other hand , the aid was granted on a
           purely ad hoc basis and not pursuant to the
           legislation applicable to aids in the Flemish                In support of his action, the applicant pleads, first, breach of
           Region,
                                                                        the requirement to state reasons, claiming that the contested
                                                                        decision does not provide sufficient information to allow
                                                                        him to ascertain whether it was well founded and whether it
     — the Commission manifestly misjudged VLM's
           financial situation which, contrary to what the              was appropriate to bring an action before the Court of First
                                                                        Instance .
           Commission states in its decision, underwent further
           substantial deterioration in the course of 1994 .
                                                                        He also alleges breach of the principle of legal certainty and
3 . By failing to take account of the applicant's observations          claims that it is unlawful to withdraw a decision which
     and by failing to give the applicant the opportunity to            conferred individual rights . In that regard, he states that
     comment on the replies furnished by the Belgian                    even if the decision of 1 8 October 1 994 had been improperly
     authorities, the Commission has infringed Article 190 of           adopted , the appointing authority could only withdraw it
     the EC Treaty .                                                    within a reasonable period; in this instance , it was not until
                                                                        more than eight months after the decision was adopted that
                                                                        the appointing authority withdrew it, which is an
                                                                         unacceptable lapse of time .
                                                                         Finally, the applicant considers that the contested decision
  Action brought on 7 February 1996 by Stephen Pascall                   infringed the principle of the protection of legitimate
   against the Commission of the European Communities                    expectations . He claims that when the appointing authority
                           ( Case T-20/96 )                              awarded him the additional step, it must have known that he
                                                                         had already been appointed as an official; it is indisputable,
                             ( 96/C 108/26 )                             therefore , that in adopting that decision the appointing
                                                                         authority raised reasonable expectations on the applicant's
                   (Language of the case: Frencb)                        part .
 An action against the Commission of the European
 Communities was brought before the Court of First