ORDER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Appeal Chamber)

22 June 2009

Case T-376/08 P

Bart Nijs

v

Court of Auditors of the European Communities

(Appeal – Civil Service – Officials – Evaluation report for 2005/2006 – Decision not to promote the appellant in 2007 – Decision of the Court of Auditors to renew the mandate for its Secretary General – Appeal manifestly inadmissible in part and manifestly unfounded in part)

Appeal: brought against the order of the Civil Service Tribunal of the European Union (Second Chamber) of 26 June 2008 in Case F‑1/08 Nijs v Court of Auditors [2008] ECR-SC I-A-1-0000 and II‑A-1-0000 seeking that that order be set aside.

Held: The appeal is dismissed. Mr Bart Nijs is ordered to bear his own costs and to pay those incurred by the Court of Auditors of the European Communities in the present proceedings.

Summary

Appeals – Statement of pleas in law and legal arguments in the application – Plea not sufficiently clear – Reference to all the annexes – Inadmissibility

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 138(1)(c))

In an appeal before the Court of First Instance against a decision of the Civil Service Tribunal, a general reference to documents other than the appeal cannot make up for the absence of essential elements of the legal arguments which must be included in the appeal pursuant to Article 138(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance. Furthermore, it is not a matter for the Court to seek and identify, in the annexes, pleas in law and arguments which it might deem to constitute the basis of the action, since the annexes have a purely evidential and instrumental function.

(see para. 24)

See: T‑154/98 Asia Motor France and Others v Commission [1999] ECR II‑1703, para. 49; T‑209/01 Honeywell v Commission [2005] ECR II‑5527, para. 57