ORDER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(First Chamber)

25 June 2013

Case F‑28/12

Luigi Marcuccio

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Request to delete a sentence from the medical report — Occupational accident or disease — Implied rejection of the request)

Application:      brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, in which Mr Marcuccio seeks annulment of the decision by which the European Commission refused to amend the content of a medical report drawn up in the context of a procedure for the recognition of the accidental nature of an event.

Held:      The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. Mr Marcuccio is to bear his own costs and pay the costs incurred by the European Commission. Mr Marcuccio is to pay the European Union Civil Service Tribunal the sum of EUR 2 000.

Summary

1.      Actions brought by officials — Act adversely affecting an official — Definition — Preparatory act — Medical report drawn up in the context of an inquiry initiated on the basis of Article 20 of the Rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Not included

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91; Rules on insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 20)

2.      Judicial proceedings — Costs — Unreasonable or vexatious costs imposed on the Civil Service Tribunal as a result of an action by an official which is an abuse of process

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 94)

1.      Only acts or decisions producing binding legal consequences likely directly and immediately to affect the applicant’s interests by significantly changing his legal situation may be the subject of an action for annulment.

Thus, in the case of acts or decisions adopted by a procedure involving several stages, and particularly where they are the culmination of an internal procedure, it is only those measures which definitively determine the position of the institution upon the conclusion of that procedure which are open to challenge and not intermediate measures whose purpose is to prepare the final decision.

In that regard, a medical report, drawn up in the context of an inquiry initiated on the basis of Article 20 of the common rules on the insurance of officials against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, must be regarded as an act whose purpose is purely to prepare the final decision and is not, per se, an act adversely affecting an official. In those circumstances, the request for the amendment of such a report cannot be held to be a request for the purposes of Article 90(1) of the Staff Regulations, the implied rejection of which may be the subject of a complaint under Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations, and subsequently an appeal under Article 91 of the Staff Regulations.

(see paras 20, 21, 24-25)

See:

21 January 1987, 204/85 Stroghili v Court of Auditors, para. 6

13 December 2006, F‑47/06 Aimi and Others v Commission, para. 58; 29 November 2007, F‑52/06 Pimlott v Europol, para. 48; 29 February 2012, F‑3/11 Marcuccio v Commission, para. 39

2.      Under Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, if the Tribunal has incurred avoidable costs, in particular where the action is manifestly an abuse of process, it may order the party who caused such costs to be incurred to refund them in whole or in part, but the amount of that refund may not exceed EUR 2 000.

It is appropriate to apply that provision where the EU Courts have already found on several occasions that the applicant opted for legal action without valid justification and where it is clear that the case in question is an extension of that approach.

(see paras 30-31)