Judgment_paragraph 31 · Evropaïki Dynamiki - Proigmena Systimata Tilepikoinonion Pliroforikis kai Tilematikis AE v European Investment Bank (T-461/08)

31The EIB is also of the view that the applicant’s application for annulment is admissible. It invites the Court to state clearly that it has jurisdiction to hear an application for annulment of a decision of the EIB rejecting a tender submitted by a person and awarding the public contract in question to another person and to hear the claim for compensation for the loss alleged to have been sustained as a result of that decision, since, in Luxembourg, the Tribunal administratif was wrong to assert that it had jurisdiction in such a matter, by judgment of 26 September 2007 (registered as Case No 22447), confirmed on appeal by judgment of the Cour administrative (Administrative Appeal Court) of 21 February 2008 (registered as Case No 23620C). In Case C-370/89 SGEEM and Etroy v EIB [1992] ECR I-6211, the Court of Justice confirmed that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate on an action for damages brought by a company on the basis of the purported unlawfulness of the EIB’s decision not to award it a public works contract. Moreover, in Case T-411/06 Sogelma v EAR [2008] ECR II-2771, paragraphs 42 and 43, this Court held, referring to the decision in Les Verts v European Parliament (see paragraph 30 above), that, where they produce legal effects vis-à-vis third parties, the decisions taken by a Community body, in that case the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), are open to challenge before the General Court. According to the EIB, as a Community administrative body, it should therefore be treated in the same way when it adopts decisions producing legal effects vis-à-vis third parties in the context of public procurement procedures or requests for access to its documents. Conversely, the EIB maintains that it does not come within the jurisdiction of the General Court where it exercises its lending activities, namely where it intervenes on the financial markets in the same way as any other bank (order in Case T-460/93 Tête and Others v EIB [1993] ECR II-1257, paragraph 20).