Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 6 July 2006 - Franchet and Byk v Commission

(Joined Cases T-391/03 and T-70/04)¹

(Access to documents - Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - Investigations of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) - Eurostat - Refusal of access - Inspections and investigations - Court proceedings − Rights of the defence)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicants: Yves Franchet and Daniel Byk (Luxembourg), represented by G. Vandersanden and L. Levi, avocats)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities, represented by D. Maidani, J.-F. Pasquier and P. Aalto, agents)

Re:

Application for annulment of decisions of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and of the Commission refusing the applicants access to certain documents relating to an enquiry concerning Eurostat

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:

Dismisses the applications for annulment of the decision of 18 August 2003 and the implicit decision to reject the applicants' applications of 21 and 29 October 2003 as inadmissible;

Annuls the decision of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) of 1 October 2003 in so far as it refuses access to the communications from OLAF to the Commission other than that referred to in the press release of 19 May 2003, and the Commission decision of 19 December 2003 in so far as it refuses access to the annexes to the report of the internal audit service of 7 July 2003;

Dismisses the remainder of the actions as unfounded;

4    Orders the Commission to pay one third of the applicants' costs and the parties otherwise to bear their own costs

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¹ - OJ C 21, 14.1.2004.