Notices for publication in the OJ nº T-538/18 of Tribunal General de la Unión Europea, October 19, 2018

• Resolution Date: October 19, 2018
• Issuing Organization: Tribunal General de la Unión Europea
• Decision Number: T-538/18

Action brought on 14 September 2018 - Dickmanns v EUIPO

(Case T-538/18)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: Sigrid Dickmanns (Gran Alacant, Spain) (represented by: H. Tettenborn, lawyer)

Defendant: European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

annul EUIPO’s determination communicated by its letter of 14 December 2017 that the applicant’s contract for temporary employment would end on 30 June 2018 and, to the extent necessary for the annulment of the determination referred to above, also annul the determinations communicated in EUIPO’s letters of 23 November 2013 and 4 June 2014;

order EUIPO to pay to the applicant compensation of a reasonable amount, at the Court’s discretion, in respect of the non-pecuniary and immaterial loss caused to the applicant by EUIPO’s decision referred to in the first point; and

order EUIPO to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on the following pleas in law:

Manifest error of assessment, failure to exercise the Office’s discretion, infringement of the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment, infringement of the principle of non-arbitrariness

The applicant complains that EUIPO unlawfully failed to exercise its discretion to renew for a second time the applicant’s employment contract in accordance with Article 2(f) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (‘CEOS’), or, in the alternative, failed to act a reasonable period of time prior to the end of the employment contract.

Infringement of the Guidelines for the renewal of temporary agent contracts (‘the Guidelines’), the principle of sound administration, the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment and the principle that the ending of the contract of a temporary agent under Article 2(a) or 2(f) CEOS requires a justifying ground (a ‘iusta causa’) and infringement of Article 30 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), Council Directive 1999/70/EC, ¹ the Framework Agreement (in particular Articles 1(b) and 5.1 thereof) and Article 4 of ILO Convention 158

The applicant takes the view that it should no longer have been permissible to exercise the ‘Termination Clause’ in her contract following the adoption of the Guidelines, as, once they have been introduced, they represent the applicable procedural methods of EUIPO with regard...