COURT CONFIRMS OLAF'S POWERS OF INVESTIGATION INSIDE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT.

OLAF, the EU's Anti-Fraud Office, can conduct administrative investigations within the European Parliament, as in all other European institutions, in cases of suspicion of fraud, corruption or other illegal activities. The European Parliament's Decision of November 18, 1999 adapting its Rules of Procedure to the May 1999 Inter-Institutional Agreement has not therefore been annulled. This is the tenor of a ruling passed down by the European Union Court of Justice on March 30 (case C-167/O2). The judgement confirms a February 26, 2002 ruling by the Court of First Instance, challenged by German MEP Willy Rothley and 70 other MEPs. The Court has rejected the MEPs' appeal.

The Court confirms on the one hand that the appeal is inadmissible since none of the plaintiffs were individually concerned by the Decision, which "applies without temporal limitation to...