14 October 2024 (* )

( Action for annulment and for damages – Law governing the institutions – Protection of personal data – Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 – Failure to comply with procedural requirements – Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure – Inadmissibility )

In Case T‑1138/23,

WS,

applicant,

European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO),

defendant,

THE GENERAL COURT (Tenth Chamber),

composed of O. Porchia, President, P. Nihoul and S. Verschuur (Rapporteur), Judges,

Registrar: V. Di Bucci,

makes the following

1By his action under Article 263 TFEU, the applicant, [confidential], (1) seeks, in the first place, the annulment of the decision of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 22 September 2023 rejecting, in particular, his request of 25 July 2023, submitted pursuant to Article 65 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ 2018 L 295, p. 39), seeking compensation for the material and non-material harm he allegedly suffered as a result of EUIPO’s conduct in his regard (‘the contested decision’), and, in the second place, an order that EUIPO pay damages of at least EUR 500 000 as compensation for that harm.

Background to the dispute

2Between 2006 and 2022, the applicant participated in a number of selection procedures organised by EUIPO.

3Between 22 March 2022 and 16 August 2023, the applicant submitted, pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation 2018/1725, 26 requests for access to his personal data to the office of EUIPO’s Data Protection Officer concerning the applications which he had submitted in the context of those selection procedures.

4On 25 July 2023, the applicant sent a letter to EUIPO, in which, first, he claimed that, since at least 2008, EUIPO had failed to comply with data protection rules, thereby infringing Regulation 2018/1725, and, secondly, he requested, under Article 65 of Regulation 2018/1725, compensation for the harm he allegedly suffered as a result of EUIPO’s conduct. That letter referred to previous requests for access to his personal data sent by the applicant to the various departments of EUIPO and to the replies thereto.

5On 27 July 2023, the office of EUIPO’s Data Protection Officer acknowledged receipt of that letter.

6On 18 September 2023, the applicant sent a follow-up email to his letter of 25 July 2023, adding to the addressees the Executive Director of EUIPO.

7By the contested decision, EUIPO responded to the applicant’s requests and communications received since June 2023 and to subsequent reminders. EUIPO also rejected the applicant’s claim for compensation under Article 65 of Regulation 2018/1725 and informed him that, after an in-depth investigation of all the selection procedures in which he had participated, EUIPO concluded that there had been no breach of personal data and no unauthorised access to his profiles in the systems used by EUIPO in the context of the selection procedures, and that all of his personal data had been correctly processed. In the same letter, EUIPO stated that it considered the applicant’s requests, complaints and communications to be manifestly unfounded, excessive and repetitive, and that they went beyond the use of rights for which protection was provided by the legislature. Therefore, based on point 4 of the EUIPO Code of Good Administrative Behaviour and Article 14(4) of Regulation 2018/1725, EUIPO decided to discontinue all exchanges with regard to the applicant’s requests and communications concerning the same subject matter.

Forms of order sought

8The applicant claims, in essence, that the Court should:

–annul the contested decision;

–order EUIPO to pay him damages of at least EUR 500 000 as compensation for the material and non-material harm suffered;

–order EUIPO to pay the costs.

9In the objection of inadmissibility, EUIPO contends that the Court should:

–dismiss the action as manifestly inadmissible;

–order the applicant to pay the costs.

10Under Article 130(1) and (7) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, on the application of the defendant, the Court may decide on inadmissibility or lack of competence without going to the substance of the case.

11In the present case, the Court considers that it has sufficient information from the documents in the file and has decided, on EUIPO’s application, to give its decision without taking further steps in the proceedings.

The application for annulment of the contested decision

12In its objection of inadmissibility, EUIPO pleads that the present application for annulment is inadmissible, on the ground, in essence, of non-compliance with Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, in that the application does not indicate coherently and intelligibly the basic legal and factual particulars on which it is based.

13In his observations on the objection of inadmissibility, the applicant does not respond to the plea of inadmissibility raised by EUIPO but merely makes new arguments in connection with the alleged unlawfulness of the contested decision arising from the fact that EUIPO did not respond to his requests and that those requests are not repetitive. Those arguments also appear in a scattered, disparate and confusing manner, without indicating the submissions to which they relate.

14In that regard, it should be recalled that, under the first indent of Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which applies to proceedings before the General Court under the first indent of Article 53 thereof, and under Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, an application must contain the subject matter of the proceedings, the pleas in law and arguments relied on and a summary of those pleas in law. Those elements must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the Court to rule on the application, if necessary without any further information. In order to guarantee legal certainty and the sound administration of justice, it is necessary, for an action to be admissible, that the basic factual and legal particulars relied on be indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself (see order of 23 January 2018, Campailla v European Union, T‑759/16, not published, EU:T:2018:26, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).

15Thus, the applicant is required to set out in a sufficiently systematic manner the arguments relating to each plea in law on which it relies, and the Court is not obliged, because of the lack of structure of the application or lack of rigour on the part of the applicant, to reconstruct the legal reasoning intended to support a plea by bringing together various diffuse elements of the application. The risk would be to reconstruct that plea by giving it a scope which it did not have in the mind of that party. To decide otherwise would be contrary both to the principle of the sound administration of justice and the principle that the subject matter of an action is delimited by the parties and to the defendant’s rights of defence (orders of 13 May 2020, Lucaccioni v Commission, T‑308/19, not published, EU:T:2020:207, paragraph 35, and of 15 February 2022, eSlovensko Bratislava v Commission, T‑425/21, not published, EU:T:2022:79, paragraph 13).

16In the present case, it must be stated that the application does not set out any legal plea in a sufficiently clear, intelligible and coherent manner and, therefore, does not enable the defendant to prepare its defence or the Court to rule on the action.

17The factual context put forward by the applicant contains only a non-chronological and disorderly statement of facts referring to numerous requests for access to his personal data without their subject matter being clearly comprehensible, which led, in view of their quantity and complexity, EUIPO to request an extension of the initial period provided for in Article 14(3) of Regulation 2018/1725. Furthermore, in the section entitled ‘Substance’, as EUIPO rightly submits, the applicant, in support of his nine pleas in law, merely lists the various alleged infringements of Regulation 2018/1725 by simply citing the legal provisions concerned, without the application providing a statement concerning the legal reasoning which is supposed to support each of those pleas, or making a sufficiently clear, intelligible and coherent development of the points of fact and law which should support the alleged infringements.

18As for the observations on the objection of inadmissibility, it follows from paragraph 13 above and the case-law recalled in paragraphs 14 and 15 above, that the line of argument raised by the applicant does not meet the requirements of clarity and precision arising from Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure either.

19Consequently, the application for annulment must be dismissed as inadmissible.

The claim for compensation

20Furthermore, in its objection of inadmissibility, EUIPO maintains that the claim for compensation is also inadmissible, since it does not meet the requirements of Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure.

21In that regard, it should be recalled that, in order to satisfy the requirements of the first indent of Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which applies to proceedings before the General Court under the first indent of Article 53 thereof, and of Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, an application for compensation for damage allegedly caused by an institution must specify with a sufficient degree of precision whether and in what manner all the conditions for obtaining compensation in respect of the damage allegedly suffered have been satisfied (order of 3 December 1992, TAO/AFI v Commission, C‑44/92, EU:C:1992:497, paragraphs 11 and 12, and judgment of 12 January 1994, White v Commission, T‑65/91, EU:T:1994:3, paragraph 135).

22It follows that such an application must state the evidence from which, first, the conduct alleged against the institution by the applicant may be identified, secondly, the reasons for which the applicant considers there is a causal link between the conduct and the damage he claims to have suffered and, thirdly, the nature and extent of that damage. Those three conditions are cumulative which means that, if one of them is not satisfied, the European Union cannot be held liable (see, to that effect, judgments of 10 July 1990, Automec v Commission, T‑64/89, EU:T:1990:42, paragraph 73, and of 30 June 2009, CPEM v Commission, T‑444/07, EU:T:2009:227, paragraph 33 and the case-law cited).

23In the present case, first, it is apparent from paragraphs 16 to 18 above that the application, even considered as a whole, does not make it possible to identify, with the required degree of clarity and precision, conduct on the part of EUIPO allegedly giving rise to unlawfulness capable of rendering the European Union liable. Furthermore, even supposing that the applicant refers to other unlawful conduct by EUIPO, which does not arise directly from the contested decision, it must be stated that he does not provide any clarification in that regard.

24Secondly, as regards the harm allegedly suffered, it is apparent from the application that the applicant refers, without giving further details, to non-material harm consisting of a state of permanent insecurity in which he was allegedly placed concerning his professional skills and the failure by EUIPO to comply with its obligations while processing his personal data obtained by it for recruitment purposes. Furthermore, the applicant also refers to material harm, without specifying the nature and extent of that harm. Lastly, he does not provide any explanation as to why the amount of compensation should be set at a minimum of EUR 500 000 while estimating the extent of the damage at EUR 10 million, or offer any justification for that high amount.

25Thirdly, it should be noted that the applicant does not provide any explanation concerning a possible causal link between EUIPO’s allegedly unlawful conduct and the harm he allegedly suffered.

26Consequently, the application for annulment must be dismissed as inadmissible.

27In the light of all of the foregoing considerations, the present action must be dismissed in its entirety.

Costs

28Under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. Since the applicant has been unsuccessful, he must be ordered to pay the costs, in accordance with the form of order sought by EUIPO.

On those grounds,

hereby orders:

1.The action is dismissed.

2.WS shall pay the costs.

Luxembourg, 14 October 2024.

Registrar

President

—

Language of the case: English.

Confidential information redacted.