Action brought on 23 July 2010 - HIM v European Commission

(Case T-316/10)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Health Information Management (HIM) (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: P. Zeegers, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

Declare the present application admissible and well-founded and, consequently,

order the European Commission to pay the sum of EUR 11 821.35, together with default interest at the statutory rate applicable in Belgium from 16 June 2010;

order the European Commission to pay all the costs and expenses inclusive, the amount of which is provisionally fixed at EUR 5 000.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, based on an arbitration clause, the applicant requests the General Court, in essence, to declare that, for the purposes of calculation of the applicant's general costs to be met by the Commission (in respect of contracts concluded under the eTen programme specifically), that is to say, that part of the general costs capable of being connected to the services of the staff working on the project, not including sub-contractors in the applicant's staff, since those sub-contractors do not incur any general costs to be borne by the applicant. Consequently, the costs of sub-contracts should not be included in the total amount of personnel costs by which the total amount of general costs is divided to arrive at the denominator to be used to determine the percentage of eligible general costs.

In support of its action, the applicant submits that, since sub-contractors' costs do not form part of the eligible personnel costs, the fact of including sub-contractors in the applicant's staff when calculating the amount of the total personnel costs to be used to determine the percentage of eligible general costs gives rise to an inconsistency.

In addition, the fact of including sub-contractors in the applicant's staff causes damage to the applicant, since that method results in an increase in the amount of the denominator and, in consequence, gives a proportional decrease in the percentage of eligible general costs.

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