JUDGMENT OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

1 September 2010

Case T-91/09 P

Carina Skareby

v

European Commission

(Appeal — Civil service — Officials — Reports — Career development report — 2005 assessment procedure — Simplified report established for the period from January to September 2005 — Repetition of all the findings in the 2004 career development report partially annulled subsequent to the judgment under appeal)

Appeal: against the judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal of the European Union (First Chamber) of 15 December 2008 in Case F-34/07 Skareby v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I-A-1-477 and II-A-1-2637, seeking to have that judgment set aside.

Held: The judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal of the European Union (First Chamber) of 15 December 2008 in Case F-34/07 Skareby v Commission [2008] is set aside in so far as the Civil Service Tribunal dismissed the complaint alleging the failure to assess the productivity of Ms Carina Skareby for the period from January to September 2005. The decision of 18 July 2006 establishing Ms Skareby’s career development report for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2005 is set aside in so far as it concerns paragraph 6.1 entitled ‘Productivity’. The remainder of the action brought before the Civil Service Tribunal under case number F‑34/07 is dismissed. The European Commission is ordered to bear all the costs relating to the present proceedings and those before the Civil Service Tribunal.

Summary

1.      Appeals — Pleas in law — Inadequate statement of reasons — Recourse by the Civil Service Tribunal to an implied statement of reasons — Lawfulness — Conditions

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 36 and Annex I, Art. 7(1))

2.      Appeals — Pleas in law — Error of law

(Art. 256 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 10(2))

3.      Officials — Actions — Subject-matter — Instruction to the administration — Inadmissibility

(Art. 266 TFEU; Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

1.      While the Civil Service Tribunal is under an obligation to state the reasons on which its judgments are based, in accordance with Article 36 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which is applicable to it pursuant to Article 7(1) of Annex I to that Statute, that obligation does not require it to provide an account which covers exhaustively and one by one all the arguments put forward by the parties to the dispute. The reasoning may therefore be implicit on condition that it enables the party concerned to know why the court of first instance has not upheld his arguments and provides the appeal court with sufficient material for it to exercise its power of review.

(see para. 36)

See: C‑120/06 P and C‑121/06 P FIAMM and FIAMM Technologies v Council and Commission [2008] ECR I‑6513, para. 96; C‑431/07 P Bouygues and Bouygues Télécom v Commission [2009] ECR I‑2665, para. 42

2.      The Civil Service Tribunal committed an error of law in allowing the continuation, in a simplified report, of an assessment which, in actual fact, did not exist because the Tribunal had partially set aside the career development report for the previous year. The court of first instance was aware of the risk it was taking in relying on that report, given that it drew attention to the fact that its judgment on the lawfulness of that report was under appeal.

(see para. 57)

3.      The General Court has no jurisdiction to issue directions to the institutions or to make statements or findings of principle. In accordance with Article 266 TFEU it is for the institution whose act has been declared void to take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment annulling it.

(see para. 70)

See: T‑76/03 Meister v OHIM [2004] ECR-SC I‑A‑325 and II‑1477, para. 38