Action brought on 29 June 2009 - Insula v Commission

(Case T-246/09)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Conseil scientifique international pour le développement des îles (Insula) (Paris, France) (represented by: P. Marsal and J.-D. Simonet, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

declare the action to be admissible and well-founded;

declare that the Commission's application for the reimbursement of the sum of EUR 189 241.64 is unfounded and, accordingly, order the Commission to issue a credit note in the amount of EUR 189 241.64;

order the Commission to pay damages of EUR 212 597;

in the alternative, declare that the applicant has the right to a compensatory allowance of EUR 230 025;

order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, which is based on an arbitration clause, the applicant requests that the Court find that the debit notes of 25 September 2008, 26 March 2009 and 26 May 2009, by which the Commission called, following an audit report by OLAF, for the recovery of advances paid to the applicant, are inconsistent with the clauses of the contracts IST-2001-35077 DIAS.NET and IST-1999-20896 MEDIS concluded in the context of a specific programme for Community research, technological development and demonstration activities in the field of the information society (1998-2002). In the alternative, the applicant submits a claim for damages.

In support of its action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law.

By its first plea, it disputes that the debt claimed by the Commission is due and submits that all the costs it declared to the Commission should be regarded as eligible.

By its second plea, it submits that the Commission infringed the obligation to cooperate in good faith in performing the contract in the sense that it did not properly carry out it own contractual obligations, in particular by waiting for a long time before replying to the proposal for additional action submitted by the applicant and by wrongfully terminating the MEDIS contract on the basis of inadequate results even though that issue had never been raised previously and could, in the applicant's view, only have been attributed to the Commission.

By its third plea, the applicant invokes the disproportionate nature of the pecuniary sanction imposed by the Commission for the alleged failure to comply with certain accounting obligations which, even if they were to be proven to exist, would not give rise to a right, in accordance with the principles of Belgian administrative and civil law, to reimbursement of almost all of the advances agreed to. Consequently, the applicant maintains that it has a right to compensation in respect of the services carried out.

By its fourth plea, the applicant maintains that the Commission failed to comply with the principle of sound administration and of the rights to a fair hearing in the management of the verification and audit process.

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