On Wednesday 1 September, the General Court of the European Union annulled a European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) decision, which in May 2019 had refused partial access to its final case report on a street lighting project carried out in 2015 in Hungary with EU financial support (case T-517/19).
Invoking Regulation (1049/2001) on access to EU documents, the activist of a civil association challenged OLAF’s refusal to grant her partial access (with personal data, internal notes, references to OLAF methods redacted) to the final case report, closed at the end of 2017, on the street lighting projects carried out by the company Élios Innovatív Zrt. in the Hungarian municipality of Gyál, in the General Court.
Under Regulation (883/2013) framing OLAF’s investigations, the General Court recognises that there is a general presumption that disclosure of documents in an administrative file handled by OLAF would, in principle, undermine the protection of the objectives of its investigative activities. However, it specifies that this general presumption can only be invoked in cases where an investigation is ongoing or has just been completed and if, in the latter case, the competent national authorities have not yet decided, within a reasonable period, what action to take on the case report.
However, the OLAF decision was adopted after the Hungarian authorities had concluded that there was no infringement in this case. Accordingly, the General Court notes that the possibility of resorting to the general presumption was no longer justified by the need to allow the Hungarian authorities to confidently take a decision regarding the follow-up to the OLAF report.
It concluded that OLAF had made an error of law in applying the Access to Documents Regulation.
Read the judgment (in French): https://bit.ly/3jx8GxK (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)