The best friend of a key man.

In a previous article from 19/5, somebody commented that Mr. Petiaud downgrading was purely politic:

"On the 30-09-2014, VP4 Topic & VP5 Lutz published on the EPO intranet the communiqué "Functioning of the settlement of disputes system".

The communiqué explains the alleged misconducts of IAC's members nominated by the Central staff Committee (CSC):

" (...)
CSC appointees are putting artificial hurdles to the daily functioning of the IAC. e.g. providing minority views by documents redoing the opinion, thus duplicating the work already done.
Two of the CSC appointees are repetitive appelants with more than 20 cases pending which leads to excessive discussions on impartiality.
(...)"

It appears from the communiqué that the misconduct of A.P. & M. L. is "providing minority opinion" and "being themselves appelants with pending cases".
As we can see, the complains from the EPO management were purely politic.
The purpose was clearly to destroy the independence of the IAC and to avoid minority opinions in favour of staff.

The ILOAT judges did not mention the existence of the communiqué in their judgement.
Why?"

Thank you for that comment, Märpel had forgotten that communiqué.

That same person ended the comment with a question:

"How could a staff member win a case if the ILOAT judges systematically hide part of the facts?"




The simple answer is that staff cannot. That is a feature. The internal "justice" system finds staff guilty in all the cases. When it still found staff innocent (before 2016), President Battistelli could simply disregard their opinion. After that time, President Battistelli changed the members to ones more "loyal" to his person and exercised retribution on the others to make sure the ones of his choosing stayed "loyal". AT-ILO not only agrees with this practice but went out of their way to move publications of key decisions like the one concerning Mr. Corcoran to a date better suiting President Battistelli plans.

With a tribunal eager to please the President, what can we expect in the future? The big decisions which are expected in the near future are about the members of Suepo who were dismissed. The decisions were planned for the second half of this year or later, which would have allowed Suepo to negotiate a settlement with the new President. Who knows? Maybe a gesture of good will would have been useful for a President entering his functions?

AT-ILO moved the publication of the decisions to be just in time for the big parties at the end of President Battistelli's term: grand opening of Saint Germain newly decorated theatre and inauguration of the most expensive building in Holland. Märpel does not believe they moved the publication of these judgments to spoil the parties. Sorry, Mrs. Hardon, Mr. Brumme and Mrs. Weaver.


AT-ILO is not independent. AT-ILO does not respect the most basic principles of justice: it does not hear the parties, it does not reconsider the facts presented by the investigation unit which is partial to the EPO by its very nature, it hides facts as it sees fit. AT-ILO is a tribunal only by name and a shame to anyone with a legal background.



How could it come to that? First, AT-ILO is dependent financially on its largest purveyor of cases. But mostly the situation is explained from personal ties.

To understand these ties, one has first to know the internal structure of AT-ILO. It is not run by or for judges. There are 3, but they are only flown in to read decisions already pre-written. They are chosen amongst already retired judges and are normally not specialists of the particular legal system in which AT-ILO operates, even if they may be specialists in international law. Therefore they are easily convinced that the pre-written decisions are correct if they look prima facie convincing.

To do the actual work of drafting the decisions of the case, AT-ILO uses its own staff under the control of the Registrar: Dražen Petrović. Mr Petrović entered its functions at the end of 2013. In 2014, after a meeting with representatives of the EPO, Mr Petrović decided to add a third annual session to work on the extremely high backlog of EPO cases and immediately proceeded to do so by summarily dismissing an extraordinary number of cases. Märpel can only compare the statistics on the number of cases won and lost before 2014 and afterwards. This can only be the work of the team under the management of the new registrar.



At the end of 2013 something else also happened, this time at the EPO. President Battistelli hired a new person to be head of department employment law in Munich. Department employment law is the department of jurists doing the work of preparing the submissions of the EPO in AT-ILO cases. That department is only a few people in the 7th floor of the Isar building, most of whom are on fixed term contracts. The head of that department is Laurent Germond.

How President Battistelli managed to recruit Mr Germond is a mystery. Before the EPO, Mr. Germond had the same work at the European Space Agency in Paris. Why, as a Frenchman, did he chose to leave Paris to do the same job at about the same salary in Munich? The EPO and the ESA are both international organisations and have similar pay scales. Rumours say that some promises were made, but Märpel would advise Mr. Germond not to trust rumours. President Battistelli rarely holds his promises and, in any case, time is running short.

But, in 2013, President Battistelli wanted Mr. Germond so badly that the recruitment procedure took months, in complete disregard of applicable regulations.

Why was President Battistelli so eager to hire Mr. Germond? Märpel believed that the reason is that Mr Germond and Mr. Petrović are personal friends. The world of international organisations is tiny, the world of international administrative justice even more so. Mr Germond and Mr. Petrović have worked in that circle for a long time and have come to appreciate each other. And maybe a bit more than that, but Märpel cannot tell without revealing her sources.

When he entered his functions, President Battistelli knew the EPO very well from his work in the administrative council. He knew, from the experiences of previous presidents, that the main card of the staff was AT-ILO. The tribunal overturned several key decisions in favour of staff. President Battistelli wanted none of that. President Battistelli knew that it was absolutely vital to his plans that AT-ILO would be in is favour. He needed a way. The new registrar offered him one.