In its June meeting the Administrative Council of the EPO decided to abolish its only recently created Audit Committee (see below). Mr. Paul Ernst, Member of the Audit Committee, comments in a SUEPO interview
In its June meeting the Administrative Council of the EPO decided to abolish its only recently created Audit Committee (see below). Mr. Paul Ernst, Member of the Audit Committee, comments in a SUEPO interview
With an annual operation budget of close to 1.5 billion Euros the European Patent Organisation needs a strong governance mechanism to guarantee good practice and transparency. This is particularly important since due to its immunity the EPO is not subject to the checks and balances common in most national systems.
In order to improve the existing governance, the previous President, Ms Brimelow, proposed the introduction of an Audit Committee (see CA/140/08).
The Administrative Council, at the time chaired by Mr Battistelli, approved the proposal (see CA/D 9/09).
As President of the EPO, Mr Battistelli recently proposed to abolish the Audit Committee (CA/55/11).
The Council, once again, approved.
The Staff Union of the EPO considers the abolition of the Audit Committee premature and instead argues that further measures to strengthen good governance such as the introduction of a whistle-blower policy and a Code of Conduct are necessary before removing existing mechanisms.
During the last decade the EPO has increasingly hired contract staff. This practice has been criticized by the staff representation of the EPO for circumventing its statutory rights for consultation and for putting the staff concerned in a legal vacuum. Following an internal appeal, the ILO Tribunal has instructed the Office in July 2010 to submit its out-sourcing policy for statutory consultation within 60 days. This has not yet happened.
In the mean time two external staff members whose contracts were not prolonged filed a complaint against the intermediary (MBA) at a German court. Further information can be found in articles that appeared in Spiegel and SZ.
A hearing at the second instance, the Landesarbeitsgericht München, took place on 18 May. The hearing lasted less than an hour. The presiding judge, Mr. Taubert, exerted extreme pressure on the complainants to settle the dispute rather than pursue their complaints. When this was refused the judge dismissed one of the complaints without giving any reasons and without hearing the complainant. Judge Taubert then turned to the second complainant and repeated his question whether the complainant would not rather settle. Visibly irritated by the continued refusal, he then stated that in this case her actual employment relation when working in the EPO could have been dependent and would require further investigation. A second hearing is to be scheduled to which two key witnesses from the EPO will be invited.
Another complaint concerning the employment practices of the EPO is pending at the European Court of Human Rights (see FTP).
The Administrative Council met on 29th & 30th March in The Hague.
The agenda can be found here.
The discussions of the first day centered around the (confidential) Deloitte Finance Study commissioned by the President of the EPO, Mr. Battistelli.
A topic of interest on the second day was CA/24/11, the first report of the newly established Audit Committee. In a short intervention (English version, German version), the staff representation expressed its appreciation for the work done by the Audit Committee and the positions expressed in the report, in particular concerning the necessity of a Code of Conduct and an anti-fraud policy supported by an effective whistle-blowing policy.
For employees of international organisations their employer is at the same time legislator and judge. In an interview with SUEPO Mr. Matthew Parish comments on this situation.
Mr. Parish is an International lawyer specializing in sovereign and international dispute resolution. He is also the author of the book "Mirages of international justice" (preorder at Amazon)
The series of SUEPO interviews continues with an interview with Jesper Kongstad, Chairman of the Administrative Council and Director-General and CEO of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office.
From the interview: "A more personal goal for me is that working with the new President of the Office, we will be able to create a much closer cooperation between the AC and the management of the Office, between the AC and staff, and indirectly between management and staff..."
In the series of SUEPO interviews Peter Drahos takes a critical view at the functioning of the global patent system. Peter Drahos is Professor in Law and Director of the Centre for the Governance of Knowledge and Development at the Australian National University Chair in Intellectual Property at Queen Mary, University of London. His latest book entitled "The Global Governance of Knowledge" is based on a detailed study of the patent systems of forty-five rich and poor countries.
A citation from the interview: "The challenge for patent offices in the 21st century is whether they will take on more of a leadership role in networks made up of civil society, health departments, competition authorities and patent offices becoming champions of a people's social contract or whether they will spend their time handing out customer satisfaction surveys to their multinational clients and hoping for lots of ticks of approval. The latter, I predict, will do little for the morale of their examiners."
As reported previously, the staff representation at the EPO has criticized the Organisation for not respecting the rights of external staff employed within the Organsation. This week the staff representation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) issued a press release in which it also demands decent working conditions for their colleagues on flexible contracts. SUEPO sent a letter of support to the ILO Staff Union.
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