The General Court has largely upheld the European Court of Auditors’ decision of April 2019 ordering Karel Pinxten, a member of this EU institution between 2006 and 2018, to reimburse it the sum of €153,407 unduly received in respect of mission expenses and daily allowances, representation expenses and the use of driver services, in a judgment handed down on Wednesday 11 September (Case T-386/19).
The European Court of Auditors’ decision on the recovery of the sums in dispute is based on an investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) into the abuses. In addition to the annulment of the Court of Auditors’ decision, Mr Pinxten is seeking compensation for the non-material damage he has suffered. He claims that the Court of Auditors damaged his career and reputation by its successive communications concerning the existence and conclusions of the OLAF report at a time when he himself did not have the report.
In its judgment, the General Court found that OLAF’s investigation was not vitiated by any irregularity and that the Court of Auditors’ decision to recover certain amounts was sufficiently reasoned and largely well-founded. Despite the fact that five years have elapsed between the events and the request for reimbursement, most of the claims are not time-barred, it concludes.
However, the General Court considers that certain claims are time-barred and that certain mission, representation and driver-related expenses were legitimate. It therefore orders the Court of Auditors to reimburse the plaintiff the sum of €19,250, together with default interest at the rate of 3.5%, from 7 June 2019.
Finally, the General Court dismisses Mr Pinxten’s claim for compensation for non-material damage, as he has not established that the alleged damage was the direct consequence of an act attributable to the EU institution.
In September 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union had ordered that Mr Pinxten be deprived of two-thirds of his pension, in connection with abuses of mission and representation expenses (Case C-130/19) (see EUROPE 12802/23).
See the Court of Auditors decision: https://aeur.eu/f/ddt (in French). See the press release concerning the decision: https://aeur.eu/f/det (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)