Action brought on 29 January 2013 - Rose Vision and Seseña v Commission

(Case T-45/13)

Language of the case: Spanish

Parties

Applicants: Rose Vision, SL (Seseña, Spain) and Julián Seseña (Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain) (represented by: M. Muñiz Bernuy and A. Alonso Villa, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the General Court should:

annul the decisions to suspend agreed payments;

remove Rose Vision, SL from the Central Exclusion Database and the Early Warning System (EWS);

order the defendant to pay EUR 5 000 624 in damages.

Pleas in law and main arguments

One of the two applicants, an undertaking principally engaged in telecommunications, research and development (R&D) and consultancy services in telecommunications, research and innovation, has worked on numerous projects with the Commission since 2002.

This action has arisen out of two audits of the applicant undertaking carried out between February and April 2011. The audit reports allege a series of failures and irregularities on the part of the applicant undertaking, which were the basis for the suspension of outstanding payments.

The applicants claim that those allegations do not reflect reality. They maintain that it can in fact be seen from a careful reading of one of the two audit reports mentioned above that the aim informing the report was to make an unjustified attack on the applicants for the purpose of discrediting them. In this way, the audit report is mostly based on unverified information. The Commission's approach is more akin to an investigative, supervisory or inspection-related approach than to that of an audit, in which information must be verified and the reliability of sources ensured.

All of this has caused the applicant undertaking serious harm, not only of an economic nature but also to its professional reputation and to its credibility.

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