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Action brought on 5 February 2008 - IEA and Others v Commission

(Case T-56/08)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Stichting IEA Secretariaat Nederland (IEA) (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Educational Testing Service Global BV (ETS-Europe) (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung (DIPF) (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen (IQB) (Berlin, Germany) (represented by: E. Morgan de Rivery and S. Thibault-Liger, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

Annul in its entirety the decision of the Commission of 23 November 2007 rejecting the tender from the applicant in response to the call for tender No EAC/21/2007 'European survey on language competences', in so far as it infringes EU law and is based on manifest errors of assessment;

annul in its entirety the decision of the Commission awarding the contract related to this call for tender to the SurveyLang Consortium, in so far as it infringes EU law and is based on manifest errors of assessment; and

order, pursuant to Article 87(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the CFI, the Commission to pay the costs of the applicant.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicants submitted a bid in response to the defendant's call for tender concerning the 'European survey on language competences' (OJ 2007/S 61-074161), as rectified (OJ 2007/S 109-133727). The applicants contest the defendant's decision of 23 November 2007 to reject their bid and to award the contract to another tenderer.

In support of their application, the applicants submit that the contested decision violates the principle of equal treatment, Article 100(1) of the financial regulation¹ and the tender specifications.

Furthermore, the applicants claim that the Commission committed a manifest error of assessment of the qualitative criteria laid down in the tender specifications, which in turn led to a manifest error of assessment in the setting of the bidders' respective scores.

Finally, the applicants allege that the Commission breached the principle of good administration by failing to exercise due care during the tender procedure.

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¹ - Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (OJ 2002 L 248, p. 1), as rectified (OJ 2003 L 25, p. 43).