Action brought on 10 February 2014 — St'art and Others v Commission

(Case T-93/14)

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 measure:

namely the decision of an unknown date formalised on 29 November 2013 by the European Commission to reclaim the sum of EUR 140 500.01 from the company EDC in the context of the tender ‘Factor SI.2.609157-2/G/ENT/CIP/11/C/N03C011’ and to require, if necessary, for that purpose, the joint and several liability of the other members of the consortium.

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 right to sound administration and inter alia of the obligation to state reasons and infringement of the principle of lawfulness, in so far as the Commission’s decision to recover the advances paid to the company EDC in the context of the project ‘C-I Factor’ and to claim the joint and several liability of the applicants, members of the consortium, in that regard is based on an unlawful decision 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. The applicants also complain that the Commission did not give them the opportunity to carry out, themselves, the obligations arising from the contract in order to remedy any possible shortcomings of the company EDC.