27.8.2011   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 252/14

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issue an order that the contested parts of Judgment of the General Court in Case T-149/09 be overturned;

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annul the whole of the Contested Decision;

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issue an order that the Parliament pays the appellant's costs of this appeal and of the application for annulment in the General Court.

(a)

The Parliament had not explained anywhere in the Contested Decision the reasons why it considered that the numerous documents submitted by the appellant did not prove that the items set out at paragraph 25 were used in accordance with the PEAM rules, nor the respects in which the Parliament considered them to have been wrongly claimed under Article 14 of the PEAM rules or to have been misused or used for improper purposes.

(b)

In fact the appellant had explained each item listed at paragraph 25 of the Contested Decision, and had also explained that each item was incurred entirely and precisely in order to cover only the expenses arising from the employment or engagement of MP Holdings as service provider. The appellant had provided a large volume of documentary evidence in order to show that the allowances paid to MP Holdings were actually used for Article 14 purposes. What he provided has vastly exceeded the documents he has been required to keep and provide at all relevant times, in particular documents relating to the appellant’s first mandate. This evidence demonstrated that all expenses were incurred wholly and exclusively in providing parliamentary assistance services to the appellant. The Parliament was seeking to impose hugely onerous requirements on the appellant to provide documentation in order to justify each and every cost going right back to 1999. These were not requirements that existed at the time the expenses were incurred, and indeed have never been preconditions for reimbursement at all under Article 14 of the PEAM Rules.