Notice for the OJ
Action brought on 15 July 2002 by Santiago Gómez-Reino against the Commission of the European Communities
(Case T-215/02)
Language of the Case: French
An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 15 July 2002 by Santiago Gómez-Reino, resident in Brussels, represented by Marc-Albert Lucas, Lawyer.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
(find that the European Anti-Fraud Office acted unlawfully by not notifying him of a decision to open investigations concerning him individually, not informing him of investigations liable to implicate him and not enabling him to express his views on all the facts concerning him before conclusions referring to him personally were drawn from the investigations;
(annul the decisions of the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office and of the Commission disclosed by the Commission press release of 26 February 2002 to open or reopen, in September 2001, investigations concerning the ECHO case or the procedure to which that case gave rise, or as to the existence of new evidence in that case;
(annul the decision of the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office disclosed by the Commission press release of 28 February 2002 to open a formal investigation against former officials of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention;
(annul the unnotified and unpublished decision of the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office, which is apparent from the document presented by the Vice-President of the Commission to COCOBU (the Committee on Budgetary Control) at its meeting on 11 March and from his letters of 12 and 15 April to the chairman of that committee, to open an investigation into alleged procedural manipulations in the ECHO case attributable to a "cartel of senior officials" supposedly including the applicant;
(annul the unpublished and unnotified decision of the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office, which is apparent from the same documents, to reopen an investigation against the applicant in the ECHO case on the basis of supposedly new evidence in that case, capable of justifying the reopening or the resumption of disciplinary proceedings against him;
(annul the decision of the Commission which was notified to him by a letter from its Vice-President of 8 April 2002, in so far as it rejects his requests for assistance made on 8 March 2002 or earlier or does not meet its obligation to supply that assistance automatically by appropriate means;
(annul the implied decision of the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office of 7 July 2002 rejecting the applicant's complaints of 8 March against the decisions and failures to take measures imposed by the rules of law applicable to the Office which he asks to be annulled or found unlawful, or rejecting his requests for the measures required by the rules of law applicable to the Office to be taken in relation to him;
(annul the express decision of the Commission of 8 April 2002 rejecting the applicants' complaints against the decisions and failures to take measures imposed by the Staff Regulations which he asks to be annulled or found unlawful, or rejecting his requests for the measures required by the Staff Regulations to be taken in relation to him;
(order the Commission to pay him EUR 1 000 000 in compensation for non-material damage and harm to his career, assessed provisionally, together with interest at 8% per annum from 1 March 2002 until full payment;
(order the Commission to pay the costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments
By the present action the applicant seeks, in particular, annulment of: (i) the decisions to reopen investigations concerning the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) case because allegedly new facts had arisen and subsequently to open a formal investigation against former officials of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) and the applicant; and (ii) of the Commission decision refusing the applicant's request for assistance with regard to statements published in the press which in the applicant's view are defamatory because they call his professional probity into question.
In support of his claims, the applicant pleads:
(infringement of the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations, of rights of the defence and of Article 4 of Commission Decision 1999/396/EC, ECSC, Euratom,
1 in that he was not notified of a decision to open an investigation concerning him individually, was not informed of the possibility of his implication in past or current investigations, was not informed of the allegations made against him and was not invited to express his views on all the facts concerning him before conclusions referring to him by name were drawn from the investigations;
(infringement of the principles of certainty and of the protection of legitimate expectations, in that the European Anti-Fraud Office, with the agreement of the Commission, regarded as new matters capable of justifying the reopening of formal investigations or fresh disciplinary measures against the applicant matters which the Commission had precluded from being such in previous decisions, specifically in the decisions following Case T-108/00 R
Gómez-Reino v
Commission 2;
(infringement of the principle of legality of administrative action and of the first subparagraph of Article 4(1) of Regulation No 1073/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council,
3 in that the investigations of the European Anti-Fraud Office were opened or reopened on the basis of information obtained in breach of the secrecy of the proceedings of the Disciplinary Board which is to be observed under the second paragraph of Article 6 of Annex II to the Staff Regulations, in conjunction with a breach of the obligation of discretion laid down for officials by the second paragraph of Article 17 of the Staff Regulations and for members of the Commission by Article 287 of the EC Treaty.