Action brought on 15 January 2014 — St’art and Others v Commission

(Case T-36/14)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicants: St’art — Fonds d’investissement dans les entreprises culturelles (Mons, Belgium); Stichting Cultuur — Ondernemen (Amsterdam, Netherlands); and Angel Capital Innovations Ltd (London, United Kingdom) (represented by: L. Dehin and C. Brüls, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

declare the application to be admissible and well founded and consequently annul the contested measures:

either the European Commission’s decision of an unknown date to terminate the project ‘Factor SI.2.609157-2/G/ENT/CIP/11/C/N03C011’ and to end, as a consequence, the award of the subsidy granted to the consortium created by the applicants;

or the decision confirming that, adopted on 29 November 2013;

order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings including the lawyers’ fees and pre-trial work.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicants rely on two pleas in law.

First plea in law, alleging infringement of the obligation to state reasons and infringement of the right to be treated fairly and of the general principle that agreements and contractual terms and conditions must be performed in good faith, in so far as the reasoning provided by the Commission is incorrect and or none of the terms and conditions for terminating the contract are met. The applicants claim that the fact that the objectives which the project was to meet were met by other means, thereby depriving the project of its objective, is not a valid reason to terminate the subsidy contract.

Second plea in law, alleging exceeding and misuse of powers and infringement of the right to sound administration, of the principle of an adversarial process and of the general principle patere legem quam ipse fecisti, the Commission not providing information to make it possible, first, to know whether it examined the observations made by the consortium of which the applicants were a part and, second, to know the grounds on which it had rejected those observations.