Action brought on 24 November 2009 - JSK International Architekten und Ingenieure v ECB

(Case T-468/09)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: JSK International Architekten und Ingenieure GmbH (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (represented by: J. Steiff and K. Heuvels, lawyers)

Defendant: European Central Bank

Form of order sought

Annul the ECB's award decision of 6 August 2009 and the decision on the complaint of 14 September 2009 by the body within the ECB responsible for review proceedings;

declare that (i) the annulled award decision is to be replaced by the award of the contract to the applicant, (ii) in the alternative, that the procedure by which the contract was awarded is to be repeated from the moment tenderers were invited to submit bids, this time to include JSK's bid, (iii) in the final alternative, to repeat the procedure by which the contract was awarded from the very beginning;

only in the alternative - and only if, as is not likely, the applications under 1 and 2 above are dismissed - award the applicant damages in the amount of its positive interest (lost profit), provisionally estimated to amount to EUR 900 000; in the alternative, in the amount of its negative interest (cost of preparing the tender), provisionally estimated to amount to EUR 80 000;

order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings and the extrajudicial costs necessarily incurred by the applicant in taking the appropriate legal action (lawyers' fees and expenses);

grant the applicant unrestricted access to the files, which has been denied to date.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By its claims, the applicant takes issue with, on the one hand, the decision of the ECB's award committee of 6 August 2009 to reject the bid submitted by the applicant in response to the call for tenders in respect of coordination and site management tasks relating to the new ECB building in Frankfurt am Main (T109 Bauleiter), and, on the other hand, the decision of the body within the ECB responsible for review proceedings of 14 September 2009 to reject the applicant's complaint brought against that award decision. In the alternative, the applicant has applied for damages.

In support of its application, the applicant submits, first, that the award decision contains errors because of a conflict of interests. In this respect, the applicant alleges that there has been an infringement of the principle of good administration within the meaning of Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Second, the applicant submits that the failure to consider its bid constitutes an error of law and takes issue with the fact that its bid was excluded on grounds of inadequacy and low quality.

Finally, the applicant claims that procedural rights were infringed with respect to transparency and the right to legal protection, such as an infringement of the right of access to the file.

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