Action brought on 15 March 2019 — Breyer v Commission

(Case T-158/19)

(2019/C 206/48)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: Patrick Breyer (Kiel, Germany) (represented by: J. Breyer, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—	annul the Commission’s decision of 17 January 2019 bearing the reference Ares(2018)6073379; and

—	order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

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

Misapplication of the first indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (1) (protection of commercial interests)

—

In the first plea in law the applicant argues that the disclosure of documents concerning the approval and execution of the iBorderCtrl research project would not negatively impact the protection of the commercial interests of the consortium’s members. The subject matter of the ‘Intelligent Portable Border Control System’ project is research into new technologies for immigration control, such as the introduction of ‘automated lie detection’ and the calculation of a risk value.

—	Further, the applicant claims that there is an overriding public interest in the disclosure of the documents at issue.

Second plea in law: misapplication of Articles 7(1) and 8(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001(processing of applications)

—	In the second plea in law the applicant maintains that the Commission processed only the application for access to documents on the execution of the iBorderCtrl research project. However, the application for access to documents relating to the project’s approval was not processed.

(1) Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).