EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 374/44

(Case T-605/17)

(2017/C 374/66)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: CX (represented by: É. Boigelot, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the General Court should:

—declare his action admissible and well founded;

—consequently,

—annul the ‘debit note’, regarded by the Commission as a decision adversely affecting the applicant (‘the second contested decision’), dated 22 December 2016 (Annex A.1), under the reference Ares(2016)7145655, in so far as it requires the applicant to recover the ‘salaries paid in 2015 and 2016’;

—annul the ‘preliminary information letter’ (‘the first contested decision’), of 28 October 2016 (Annex A.2), under the reference Ares(2016)6178919, which ostensibly constitutes its legal basis;

—annul, to the extent necessary, the decision of 23 May 2017 (Annex A.5), under the reference Ares(2017)2620957, notified on the same day (Annex A.6), by which the appointing authority rejected the applicant’s complaint, which he had lodged on 27 January 2017, under the reference R/59/17 (Annex A.4), against the contested decisions;

—order the defendant to pay all of the costs, in accordance with Article 134 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court of the European Union.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on three pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging a formal defect and a procedural defect, and that the appointing authority adopted the contested decisions on an erroneous legal basis, which justifies their annulment.

2.Second plea in law, alleging that Article 85 of the Staff Regulations of Officials, upon which the appointing authority based itself, is manifestly inapplicable in the present case. In the applicant’s view, the recovery of undue payments is subject to two cumulative conditions: first, the payment which the administration seeks to recover must have been irregular, and second, the member of staff must have been aware of that irregularity or the irregularity must have been so obvious that the member of staff could not have failed to be aware of it, which is clearly not the case here.

3.Third plea in law, alleging infringement of the formal and procedural rules by reason of the adoption of a decision devoid of any legal basis, in so far as it is maintained in that decision a posteriori that the measure justifying it is not, or is no longer, a measure adversely affecting the applicant.