C-450/25

ORDER OF THE COURT (Sixth Chamber) 9 December 2025 (*) ( Appeal – Civil service – Temporary staff – Dismissal following a conflict of interest – Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union – Article 11 – Principle of sound administration – Protection of personal data – Rejection of a complaint challenging the refusal to compensate the applicant – Action for annulment and for damages ) In Case C‑450/25 P, APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 9 July 2025, DR, represented by N. Flandin, avocate, appellant, the other party to the proceedings being: European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), defendant at first instance, THE COURT (Sixth Chamber), composed of I. Ziemele, President of the Chamber, S. Gervasoni and M. Bošnjak (Rapporteur), Judges, Advocate General: L. Medina, Registrar: A. Calot Escobar, having decided, after hearing the Advocate General, to rule by reasoned order, pursuant to Article 181 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, makes the following Order 1        By his appeal, the appellant seeks to have set aside the order of the General Court of the European Union of 5 May 2025, DR v EIOPA (T‑452/24, ‘the order under appeal’, EU:T:2025:456), by which the General Court dismissed as inadmissible his action seeking, first, annulment of the decision of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) of 31 October 2023 rejecting his claim for compensation brought on 2 July 2023 for the damage allegedly suffered as a result of EIOPA’s unlawful conduct, and, in so far as necessary, annulment of the decision of 24 May 2024 rejecting his complaint lodged on 25 January 2024 against the decision of 31 October 2023 and, second, compensation for the material and non-material damage allegedly suffered as a result of that unlawful conduct.  The appeal 2        Under Article 181 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where the appeal is, in whole or in part, manifestly inadmissible or manifestly unfounded, the Court may at any time, acting on a proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, decide by reasoned order to dismiss that appeal in whole or in part. 3        That provision must be applied in the present case. 4        On 15 October 2025, the Advocate General took the following position: ‘1.      For the reasons set out below, I propose that the Court should, in accordance with Article 181 of its Rules of Procedure, dismiss the appeal in the present case as being manifestly unfounded. 2.      In support of his appeal, the appellant raises a single ground of appeal by which he alleges that the General Court erred in law in finding that his claim of 2 July 2023 seeking compensation from EIOPA for the damage which he claimed to have suffered (“the 2023 claim for compensation”) is closely linked to the complaint lodged on 3 February 2020 with EIOPA against the dismissal decision of 17 December 2019 (“the 2020 complaint”). The appellant criticises, in that regard, paragraphs 47 and 63 of the order under appeal. 3.      In support of his line of argument, the appellant relies on the case-law of the General Court relating to the conditions governing the inadmissibility of claims for compensation and the principle of the independence of remedies. He refers, inter alia, to the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5, paragraphs 38 to 40 and the case-law cited). 4.      In that regard, the Court of Justice has held that an action for damages is inadmissible in two situations, namely, first, where it seeks reparation exclusively for the consequences of the measure contested in the action for annulment, which has itself been declared inadmissible, and, second, where its sole purpose is to make up for “losses of remuneration” which would not have occurred if the action for annulment had been successful (see, in that regard, judgment of 14 September 2006, Commission v Fernández Gómez, C‑417/05 P, EU:C:2006:582, paragraph 51). 5.      Thus, according to settled case-law, in civil service issues, a claim for compensation for material and non-material damage must be rejected in so far as it is closely linked to the claim for annulment, which itself has been dismissed as unfounded (judgment of 19 December 2019, HK v Commission, C‑460/18 P, EU:C:2019:1119, paragraph 93 and the case-law cited). 6.      It should be noted that that case-law, which concerns the conditions for the admissibility of an action for damages in the light of the principle of the independence of remedies, cannot reasonably be invoked in support of the complaint alleging a breach of EU law in paragraphs 47 and 63 of the order under appeal. 7.      In the first place, it must be stated that the appellant’s line of argument that the General Court erred in law in paragraph 47 of the order under appeal in no way concerns the conditions for the admissibility of an action for damages. By that line of argument, the appellant criticises the General Court for having, in that paragraph, misconstrued the legal scope of the 2023 claim for compensation by finding that it “indirectly called into question” the decision rejecting the 2020 complaint. His line of argument thus concerns the General Court’s assessment of the link between two successive administrative steps, namely the 2020 complaint and the 2023 claim for compensation, and, more specifically, the question whether the latter could be regarded as calling into question the former. 8.      It follows that the case-law cited in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the present position, which relates exclusively to the relationship between the action for annulment and the action for damages, does not provide any relevant indication as to the determination of the legal link between two successive administrative claims, or as to the criteria for assessing whether a new application must be regarded as seeking to challenge, directly or indirectly, an earlier administrative decision. 9.      Therefore, the reference to the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5), does not demonstrate that the General Court erred in law in finding that the 2023 claim for compensation indirectly called into question the decision rejecting the 2020 complaint. That judgment and the case-law cited in the preceding paragraphs are, in fact, unrelated to the legal issue raised by the line of argument seeking to criticise paragraph 47 of the order under appeal. 10.      Consequently, the appellant’s line of argument does not demonstrate that the General Court erred in law in that paragraph of the order under appeal. 11.      In the second place, as regards the criticism directed against paragraph 63 of the order under appeal, the appellant submits that the 2023 claim for compensation did not seek reparation exclusively for the consequences resulting from the rejection of the 2020 complaint, but sought to criticise the breaches of the principle of sound administration and of the duty of diligence allegedly committed by EIOPA during the recruitment procedure concerning him and the administrative inquiry opened by the Executive Director of EIOPA on 22 July 2019 in order to establish the nature of his external activities, as found in the Ombudsman’s decision of 25 May 2023 referred to in paragraph 26 of the order under appeal, as well as the breach of the principles of fairness and transparency in relation to the decision of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) of 9 September 2022, which is referred to in paragraph 25 of the order under appeal. Moreover, he submits that the 2023 claim for compensation sought not only compensation for “losses of remuneration”, but also compensation for the non-material damage allegedly suffered as a result of the breach of the principle of sound administration and infringement of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ 2018 L 295, p. 39). 12.      It is apparent from paragraphs 61 to 64 of the order under appeal that the General Court first declared the appellant’s claim for annulment inadmissible, before rejecting his claim for compensation, in accordance with settled case-law arising inter alia from the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5). On the basis of that case-law, the General Court found that the appellant’s claim for compensation was closely linked to his claim for annulment, in so far as it sought compensation for the same material and non-material damage as that in respect of which he had sought compensation from EIOPA, claims which had been rejected by EIOPA’s decision of 31 October 2023 and by the decision of 24 May 2024 rejecting the appellant’s complaint lodged on 25 January 2024, decisions which, moreover, it noted were precisely those contested in the context of the claim for annulment. 13.      In so doing, the Court applied the rule, established by the case-law arising from the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5), according to which claims for compensation must be dismissed where they are closely linked to claims for annulment which have themselves been declared inadmissible or unfounded. It thereby legally classified the subject matter of the appellant’s claims, determining that they pursued the same objective and were based on the same grounds, which justified their rejection. 14.      Although the appellant refers to the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5), in order to argue that the 2023 claim for compensation and the 2024 complaint referred to in paragraph 12 of the present position have an independent purpose and content in relation to the 2020 complaint, that reference does not, however, demonstrate that the General Court erred in law. That judgment lays down the rule that a claim for compensation must be dismissed where it is closely linked to a claim for annulment which has been declared inadmissible or unfounded, but it does not specify the criteria for determining whether, in a specific case, two sets of claims relate to different purposes. The question as to whether, in the present case, the claim for damages and the claim for annulment pursued the same purpose is a matter for the General Court’s legal classification of the form of order. The appellant has not established that that classification is vitiated by an error of law in the light of the principles established by the case-law arising from that judgment or of any other relevant case-law. 15.      It should be added that the evidence on which the appellant bases his line of argument, relating in particular to the Ombudsman’s decision of 25 May 2023, the EDPS decision of 9 September 2022 and the alleged breaches of the principle of sound administration and of the duty of care and infringement of Regulation 2018/1725, cannot call into question the General Court’s assessment. That evidence is intended to demonstrate the substantive merits of the 2023 claim for compensation or to clarify its content, but does not establish that the General Court erred in law in the legal classification of that claim, or in the application of the rule established by the case-law arising from the judgment of 24 January 1991, Latham v Commission (T‑27/90, EU:T:1991:5), concerning the link between the claim for annulment and the claim for damages. 16.      It follows that the appellant’s line of argument does not demonstrate that the General Court erred in law in paragraph 63 of the order under appeal. 17.      That line of argument must therefore be rejected as being manifestly unfounded. 18.      In the light of all the foregoing considerations, the appellant’s single ground of appeal must be rejected in its entirety as manifestly unfounded.’ 5        For the same reasons as those stated by the Advocate General, the single ground of appeal relied on by the appellant must be rejected and, consequently, the appeal must be dismissed in its entirety as manifestly unfounded.  Costs 6        Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to the procedure on appeal pursuant to Article 184(1) of those rules, a decision as to costs is to be given in the order which closes the proceedings. In the present case, since the present order has been adopted before the appeal was served on EIOPA and, therefore, before the Commission could have incurred costs, DR must be ordered to bear his own costs. On those grounds, the Court (Sixth Chamber) hereby orders: 1.      The appeal is dismissed as being manifestly unfounded. 2.      DR shall bear his own costs. Luxembourg, 9 December 2025. A. Calot Escobar   I. Ziemele Registrar   President of the Chamber *      Language of the case: English.