ORDER OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

18 September 2014

Case T‑699/13 P

Luigi Marcuccio

v

European Commission

(Appeal — Civil service — Officials — Application at first instance dismissed as manifestly inadmissible — Application lodged by fax and the original subsequently received not the same — Time-limit for bringing proceedings — Action lodged out of time — Appeal in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly unfounded)

Appeal:      against the order of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (Second Chamber) of 17 October 2013 in Marcuccio v Commission (F‑145/12, ECR-SC, EU:F:2013:162), seeking to have that order set aside.

Held:      The appeal is dismissed. Mr Luigi Marcuccio is to bear his own costs and is ordered to pay the costs incurred by the European Commission in the appeal proceedings. Mr Marcuccio is ordered to refund to the General Court the sum of EUR 2 000 pursuant to Article 90 of its Rules of Procedure.

Summary

Judicial proceedings — Application initiating proceedings — Formal requirements — Application lodged by fax within the period for bringing proceedings — Lawyer’s hand-written signature different from that on the original application sent by post — Consequence — Date of receipt of fax not taken into account for assessing whether the time-limit for bringing proceedings has been met

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 21; Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 34(1) and (6))

As regards the relationship between the signature of the lawyer representing an applicant on a faxed application and that affixed to the original lodged no later than ten days afterwards, where the signature at the bottom of the faxed application is not the same as the signature on the original application lodged subsequently, the faxed application cannot be taken into account for the purpose of assessing compliance with the time-limit for bringing proceedings.

Article 34(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal provides that the date on which a copy of the signed original of a pleading is received at the Registry by any technical means of communication available to the Tribunal is taken into account for the purposes of compliance with the time-limits for taking steps in proceedings, provided that the signed original of the pleading is lodged at the Registry no later than 10 days after the copy of the original was received. The strict application of that provision fulfils the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimination or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice.

(see paras 11, 18)

See:

judgment of 22 September 2011 in Bell & Ross v OHIM, C‑426/10 P, ECR, EU:C:2011:612, para. 43 and the case-law cited therein

orders of 14 November 2013 in Marcuccio v Commission, T‑229/13 P, ECR-SC EU:T:2013:608, paras 14 to 20; 19 December 2013 in Marcuccio v Commission, T‑385/13 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2013:710, paras 13 to 21; and 10 April 2014 in Marcuccio v Commission, T‑57/14 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2014:223, para. 9