Action brought on 1 September 2016 – IPA v Commission

(Case T-635/16)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: SC IPA SA (Bucharest, Romania) (represented by: L. Vasilescu, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

annul the debit notes of 28 June 2016 Nos. 3241608864, in the amount of EUR 63 653.58, and 3241608865, in the amount of EUR 9 690.30, issued by the defendant.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant argues that in essence, the dispute lies in the calculation of the indirect costs related to the contract that has the applicant as beneficiary. Thus, a few years after the contract completion, the Commission imposed a flawed formula for the computation of the indirect costs, that is, non-conforming to the contract terms and contrary to the generally accepted principles and practices in accounting management.

The applicant contends that the Commission based its pretentions on an audit and agreed to all auditor findings, without noticing that the method of calculation of indirect costs applied by auditors violates: (i) the accounting and management principles and practices of the beneficiary that are also imposed by the contract as prevailing and (ii) the generally accepted principles and practices in accounting management.

The applicant also alleges that the calculation methods for the contract indirect costs, used by the auditor and agreed by the Commission, were unjustifiably different from the accounting system of the beneficiary, while by contract all costs had to be determined in accordance with the usual accounting and management principle and practice of the beneficiary. The beneficiary’s accounting system was the only accepted accounting system for the contract, and there was no reason to replace or disapprove the beneficiary’s accounting procedures used for the computation of contract’s indirect costs.

Finally it is alleged that, by the audit procedure, the auditor undervalued the real indirect costs for the contract, and the Commission, after agreeing in whole with the auditor’s conclusions, generated the debit notes of 28 June 2016 Nos. 3241608864, in the amount of EUR 63 653.58, and 3241608865, in the amount of EUR 9 690.30, to recover the differences in costs described in the audit.

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