The case concerned a project organised by the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking (CS2JU) and funded under the EU Research and Innovation programme ‘Horizon 2020’. The complainant claimed that a device developed in the context of the project breached his intellectual property rights.

The Ombudsman finds that the CS2JU has dealt with the complainant’s concerns in a reasonable manner and that it provided him with the appropriate advice to contact the competent national authorities.

The Ombudsman closes the inquiry with the finding that CS2JU’s handling of the complainant’s concerns about the alleged infringement of his intellectual property rights does not reveal maladministration and that no further inquiries into the other aspects of the complaint are justified.

The Ombudsman received a complaint about the decision of the European Banking Authority (EBA) to allow its Executive Director to take up a position as CEO of an association representing banks, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME).

The Ombudsman conducted an inquiry, inspected the relevant EBA documents and found maladministration, first, in that the EBA should have forbidden the job move. While the EBA adopted extensive restrictions, these are not sufficient when measured against the risks involved. The Ombudsman considers that if this move does not justify the application of the option, set out in the Staff Regulations, to forbid a staff member accepting a job offer, no move would.

Second, there was maladministration in that the EBA did not, once notified of the planned move, immediately withdraw its Executive Director’s access to confidential information.

The Ombudsman issues three recommendations to the EBA, which should (i) where necessary in future, invoke the option of forbidding its senior staff from taking up certain positions after their term-of-office. Any such prohibition should be time-limited, for example, for two years; (ii) set out criteria for when it will forbid such moves in future so as to give clarity to senior staff. Applicants for senior EBA posts should be informed of the criteria when they apply; and (iii) put in place internal procedures so that once it is known that a member of its staff is moving to another job, their access to confidential information is cut off with immediate effect.

The EBA should reply to these recommendations within three months.

 

The case concerned a 2017 grant procedure organised by the European Commission under the Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme. The complainant is the European Network on Independent Living (‘ENIL’), a Europe-wide network of people with disabilities, who applied for a grant under this procedure.

The Commission assessed ENIL’s application and decided not to recommend it for funding. The complainant alleged that the Commission had not evaluated its application fairly. The complainant also argued there was a lack of transparency preventing it from establishing in what respect its application for funding failed to meet the different evaluation criteria.

The Ombudsman inspected documents in the Commission’s file on the grant procedure and found no evidence of unfair treatment of the complainant. The Ombudsman concluded that the Commission’s reasoning and scoring in the assessment of the proposals was plausible and consistent.

The Ombudsman also assessed whether the Commission had provided the complainant with enough information about why its proposal was rejected. The Ombudsman found that the Commission had informed the complainant about why its bid was unsuccessful, including by meeting the complainant after the rejection letter had been sent out.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry finding no maladministration. She noted, however, that the Commission should give an entity seeking funding a full copy of the Commission’s overall assessment of the proposal, on request, including the marks awarded for each criterion and an explanation as regards why that mark was awarded.

The complainant is a member of staff at the European Investment Bank. His complaint to the Ombudsman was about how the EIB dealt with his concerns about an IT incident during the 2017 staff elections.

The Ombudsman inquired into the complainant’s concerns. She agreed that it was inappropriate for a candidate to have had access to the electronic voting platform during the election. She noted, however, that the EIB had reacted quickly to the incident and that it has, in the meantime, taken measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

On this basis, the Ombudsman concluded that no further inquiries were justified, and closed the case.

The complainant is a member of staff at the European Investment Bank. His complaint to the Ombudsman was about how the EIB dealt with his concerns relating to the 2017 staff elections.

The Ombudsman inquired into the complainant’s concerns that an election candidate should not have stood due to a possible conflict of interest situation. The Ombudsman also inquired into whether a Director General was in a conflict of interest situation when replying to the complainant about his concerns.

The Ombudsman found that the EIB had put in place reasonable measures before the staff election to prevent possible conflicts of interest concerning the candidate in question. Regarding the Director General, the EIB clarified that there was no conflict of interest situation.

The Ombudsman therefore closed the inquiry with a finding of no maladministration.

The complaint concerns the European Commission’s decision to recover part of the funds granted for an EU project on drug policy. The complainant, a Greek non-profit association, disagreed with the finding that certain costs relating to the work carried out by its president were ineligible.

The Ombudsman inquired into whether the Commission’s decision was fair and reasonable. From a legal perspective, the complainant had not adhered to some of the rules. The auditors had therefore initially proposed to recover all the costs relating to the president’s work. Nonetheless, the Commission reached a fair and just solution for the complainant, and considered some of the president’s costs eligible, based on the ‘best value for money’ principle. Accordingly, it reduced the recovery amount considerably.

The Ombudsman therefore closes the case finding no maladministration.

The case concerned the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) alleged failure to address properly an allegation that an administrative inquiry launched against the complainant was tainted by a conflict of interest.

The European Ombudsman found that the EIB had provided sufficient evidence to refute the allegation of a conflict of interest. The Ombudsman therefore closed the case with a finding of no maladministration.

The case concerned alleged irregularities in a call for tenders organised by the European Commission in the context of the EU-China Cooperation Platform. According to the complainant, the tender procedure was subject to an error as the winning consortium  was in a situation of conflict of interest: it would implement the funding of energy projects in China while it has members who will benefit from that funding.

The Ombudsman concluded that the character of the project in question is inclusive and that the entity implementing the contract would have to engage as many entities active in the Chinese energy sector as possible. Moreover, the Commission at an early stage in the tendering process had clarified the issue of conflict of interest.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry finding that there was no maladministration by the Commission.