CELEX: C2001/095/32
Language: en
Date: 2001-03-24 00:00:00
Title: Case T-5/01: Action brought on 4 January 2001 by Istituto Nazionale Istruzione Professionale Agricola — I.N.I.P.A. and Others against Commission of the European Communities

C 95/16               EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                    24.3.2001
Infringement of the right to put forward a proper defence: if           Pleas in law and main arguments
an undertaking on which the Commission has wrongly
imposed a fine is not entitled to claim lost interest, it is in
effect not in a position to mount a full defence against                The pleas in law and main arguments are the same as in Case
decisions wrongly addressed to it by the Commission.                    T-2/01.
Unjustified enrichment.
Since there exists no generally applicable rate of interest, the
applicant bases its calculation of the interest on the percentage
charged by the Commission when fixing the amount to be
paid by undertakings which have delayed paying a justified
                                                                        Action brought on 4 January 2001 by Istituto Nazionale
fine.
                                                                        Istruzione Professionale Agricola — I.N.I.P.A. and Others
                                                                            against Commission of the European Communities
                                                                                                  (Case T-5/01)
                                                                                                 (2001/C 95/32)
                                                                                           (Language of the case: Italian)
Action brought on 4 January 2001 by Eerste Nederlandse
Cement Industrie (ENCI) NV against the Commission of
                 the European Communities                               An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
                                                                        ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
                                                                        European Communities on 4 January 2001 by the Istituto
                          (Case T-3/01)                                 Nazionale Istruzione Professionale Agricola — I.N.I.P.A. and
                                                                        Others, represented by Giovanni Pesce and Filippo Brunetti,
                                                                        with an address for service in Luxembourg.
                         (2001/C 95/31)
                                                                        The applicants claim that the Court should:
                  (Language of the Case: Dutch)
                                                                        —     uphold the application and order the defendant to pay
                                                                              the costs.
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 4 January 2001 by Eerste Neder-                 Pleas in law and main arguments
landse Cement Industrie (ENCI) NV, established at ’s-Hertogen-
bosch (Netherlands), represented by M.B.W. Biesheuvel and
R. Wesseling, of The Hague Bar, with an address for service in          The present application is directed against the decision con-
Luxembourg at the Chambers of M. Loesch, 11 Rue Goethe.                 tained in the letter dated 27 October 2000 (D13118), signed
                                                                        by the Director General of the European Commission, Direc-
                                                                        torate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, by which
The applicant claims that the Court should:                             the applicant consortium of undertakings was informed that
                                                                        they had been excluded from the tendering procedure relating
—     annul the Commission’s decision of 23 November 2000               to the information campaign on food safety in Member States
      refusing to pay ENCI interest on the fine improperly              for 2000 and 2001.
      imposed on it;
                                                                        The rejection at issue is based on the lack of evidence of:
—     order the Commission to pay to ENCI interest at the rate
      of 8,75 %, or at least at an appropriate rate, on                 —     at least three years’ of experience in cooperation with a
      7 316 000 euro for the period from 3 May 1995 to                        consumer organisation; and
      23 November 2000, together with interest at the rate of
      6,23 % on that sum for the period from 23 November
      2000 until payment of the interest by the Commission to           —     ability to involve the consumer organisations in the
      ENCI;                                                                   campaign.
—     order the Commission to pay the costs.                            In support of its arguments, the applicant consortium alleges:
 ---pagebreak--- 24.3.2001             EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                       C 95/17
—    Error of fact and absolute lack of statement of reasons.           —     condemn the Commission to pay damages provisionally
     First, the need to involve consumer organisations was not                evaluated at 1 Euro for the prejudice suffered;
     provided for in the invitation to tender and, secondly,
     evidence of the requisite experience had been submitted.           —     condemn the Commission to pay the costs.
—    Internal inconsistency of the decision and misuse of
     powers. In a communication dated 14 September 2000,                Pleas in law and main arguments
     sent by the Commission to the participants in the
     tendering procedure, it was stated that not only had the
                                                                        The applicant entered into a three-year contract of employ-
     applicant consortium’s offer been selected, that is to say
                                                                        ment with the Authority Empowered to Conclude Contracts
     its tender been accepted, it had also been awarded the             of Employment (AECCE), which contract was renewable for a
     contract in which it was interested.
                                                                        further year.
—    Breach of the terms of the tender and invalidity on                Despite allegedly favourable opinions expressed in the appli-
     grounds of incompetence. The applicants state in this              cant’s last performance report, the AECCE decided only to
     respect that the Director General who signed the contest-          extend the applicant’s contract for six months.
     ed decision was not, under the terms of the tender, the
     person competent to carry out all the communications
     relating to the tendering procedure and to adopt the               The applicant seeks the annulment of this decision and submits
     relevant measures, and that the contested letter confuses          that the AECCE’s decision violated the obligation to state
     selection criteria, for the purposes of participating in the       reasons contained in Article 25 of the Staff Regulations. As all
     tendering procedure, and grounds for exclusion from the            three-year contracts of temporary staff were allegedly extended,
     tendering procedure itself.                                        except for the one of the applicant, a limit of six months
                                                                        for the extension of the applicant’s contract constitutes an
                                                                        infringement of the principle of non-discrimination and goes
                                                                        clearly against the interest of the service.
                                                                        Furthermore, the applicant alleges that the decision infringes
                                                                        Article 26 of the Staff Regulation and violates his rights to
                                                                        defence, and that it constitutes a misuse of powers.
Action brought on 12 January 2001 by Norman Pyres
  against the Commission of the European Communities
                          (Case T-7/01)
                                                                        Action brought on 19 January 2001 by Michael Becker
                                                                                   against the European Court of Auditors
                         (2001/C 95/33)
                                                                                                  (Case T-9/01)
                  (Language of the case: English)
                                                                                                 (2001/C 95/34)
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the                                (Language of the case: German)
European Communities on 12 January 2001 by Norman Pyres
(Swan Residence, rue Ph. Baucq, 100, Belgium), represented by
Georges Vandersanden and Laure Levi, of De Backer, Brussels.            An action against the European Court of Auditors was brought
                                                                        before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities
                                                                        on 19 January 2001 by Michael Becker, of Luxembourg,
The applicant claims that the Court should:                             represented by Roy Nathan, lawyer.
—    annul the decision of the Commission of 22 January                 The applicant claims that the Court should:
     2000 extending the Appellant’s contract of employment
     only until 30 July 2000, so for a further period limited to        —     order the defendant to withdraw its decision of 13 No-
     six months, and, if necessary, annul the decision of the                 vember 2000;
     Commission of 6 October 2000 rejecting the Appellant’s
     complaint;                                                         —     order the defendant to pay all the costs.