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Action brought on 19 November 2008 - Mauerhofer v Commission

(Case T-515/08)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Volker Mauerhofer (Vienna, Austria) (represented by: J. Schartmüller, lawyer)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

primarily, annul the contested measure as far as it concerns the applicant;

additionally, or as an alternative to the claim for annulment, find that the defendant has incurred non contractual liability through the unlawful adoption of the contested measure;

order the defendant to pay to the applicant, as a result of the contested measure, the sum of 5500 euros for the non-contractual damages suffered and an annual interest rate of 4% since 4 November 2008 until delivery of the judgment bringing the present proceedings to an end.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant seeks the annulment of Commission Decision of 9 September 2008 by which it adopted an administrative order reducing the number of working days allocated to the applicant for carrying out its tasks within an expert contract n° MC/5043/025/001/2008 signed between the applicant and the Consultant for the participation in a "Value Chain Mapping Analysis" project based on the Framework Contract "" EuropeAid/123314/C/SER/multi " carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, signed between the Consultant and the Commission. Furthermore, the applicant seeks the compensation for damages suffered as a result of the contested measure.

The applicant puts forward the following pleas in law in support of its claims:

First, the applicant claims that the contested measure was adopted by the Commission with breach of procedural requirement of a written proposal made by a Consultant prior to the Commission decision, as required by the General Conditions and Specific Guidelines applicable to the Framework Contract project "Value Chain Mapping Analysis".

Second, the applicant submits that the contested measure was adopted with violation of its right to be heard by impartial authority.

Third, it argues that the contested measure was adopted with breach of its right to be dealt with by an authority free of a conflict of interest.

Further, the applicant contends that, when adopting the contested measure, the defendant failed to correctly and fairly calculate and analyse the number of working days deducted from the total number of the days allocated to the applicant for carrying out its tasks.

Finally, the applicant claims that the Commission misused its power when adopting the contested measure as it didn't take into account for the evaluation of a number of working days allocated to the applicant the mistakes committed by the Consultant.

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