Action brought on 6 November 2009 - Centre national de la recherche scientifique v Commission

(Case T-447/09)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Centre national de la recherche scientifique (Paris, France) (represented by: N. Lenoir, lawyer)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

Annul the decision of 28 August 2009 relating to the set-off between the claim arising under contract FP7 239108 ICT - VAMDC/=PF=, and the Community's alleged claim on the applicant under the NEMAGENETAG contract;

order the Commission to pay all the costs of the proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) seeks the annulment of the set-off measure contained in Decision BUDG/C3 D(2009) 10.5 - 1232 of 28 August 2009, by which the Commission recovered sums paid to the applicant pursuant to the NEMAGENETAG contract relating to a project under the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

The applicant puts forward three pleas in law in support of its application, alleging:

infringement of the rights of the defence, in that the decision was taken without the Commission having considered the information in the applicant's detailed response to the final audit report;

errors of law and manifest errors of assessment of the facts which affected the decision and which led the Commission to refuse costs by adjusting the criteria for the assessment of eligible expenditure, and erroneously to dismiss conclusive evidence of expenditure incurred for the purposes of the project;

infringement of Article 73(1) of the Financial Regulation, in that (1) the claim at issue could not be regarded as 'certain, of a fixed amount and due', owing to the serious nature of the challenge mounted against it; (2) the claims offset against each other could not be regarded as reciprocal, since one is collective and the other personal; and (3) the amount of pre-financing payable under the VAMDC contract was not due at the time of the adoption of the set-off measure.

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