Bonum Certa Men Certa

Exclusive: New Leaked Document Shows Board 28 Surprised Battistelli and Had a Long Unilateral Argument With Him Over Union-Busting ('Disciplinary Cases'), Called It a “Crisis”

Helping and serving to refute some of the lies Battistelli has told the media as of late

EPO crisis In their own words...



Summary: A truly revealing leaked document (aged one week) shows that there is a deep disagreement between the Board and the President (for now) of the EPO

BOARD 28 is secretive, but sooner or later -- just as in the case of TPP and TTIP or ACTA -- we get lucky enough to see what's inside. The EPO's management has a lot to hide, but it's not hiding it too well (except perhaps Battistelli's ultra-secret contract). One concise summary was published here recently in English and in Spanish. An additional document, released a week ago as well (but confidential nonetheless), has landed on our lap and here it is. Our remarks on the text can be found below.

E28/2/16

Orig.: en

Munich, 09.03.2016

SUMMARY

OF

CONCLUSIONS

of the

70th meeting of the

BOARD OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL

Munich, 2 February 2016

SUBMITTED BY: Council Secretariat

ADDRESSEES: Administrative Council (for information)




This document has been issued in electronic form only.




1. The Board of the Administrative Council ("the Board") held its 70th meeting in Munich on 2 February 2016, with Mr Kongstad in the chair Mr Grossenbacher had in formed the Chairman that he was not able to attend.

2. The Board adopted the provisional agenda set out in B28/1/16 e, with the addition of a new item on the recent disciplinary cases.

3. The Board focused on the disciplinary cases. An in-depth discussion shows controversial and sometimes conflicting views between the Board members and the President on both the legal elements and the political background. The social dialogue has clearly been brought to a halt, and the matters under examination are to be addressed as a matter of absolute urgency. The Board qualified the situation as a crisis - a view challenged by the President.

4. The Board made proposals in order to assist the President in his handling of the situation. Mechanisms were proposed in order to prepare the next B28 meeting, and an informal meeting with the President was decided.

5. Due to time constraints, the Board decided to postpone the other items on the agenda to its next meeting.

6. On the issue of the structural reform of the Boards of Appeal, Mr Battistelli stressed that the B28 should not conduct hearings of administrative units of the Office -- institutional aspects are here of utmost importance. In view of this position of the President, the Board agreed to invite, jointly with the President, some representatives of the BoA for an exchange of views ahead of its next meeting.


Grossenbacher was absent (he is often seen as a defender of Battistelli, as we explained before). The Board added "a new item on the recent disciplinary cases" by essentially changing the agenda that was expected by one like Battistelli (unpleasant surprise to him for sure, but he didn't storm out in anger like earlier this week). "The Board focused on the disciplinary cases," so this is what took the lion's share of the time and basically prevented much of the rest of the agenda from being reached at all. They disagreed on "both the legal elements and the political background" and there is no indication of anyone in the Board siding with Battistelli.

"They disagreed on "both the legal elements and the political background" and there is no indication of anyone in the Board siding with Battistelli.""The social dialogue has clearly been brought to a halt," it says, so clearly they too realise that the whole 'union recognition' was nonsensical theatre.

The above adds that "the matters under examination are to be addressed as a matter of absolute urgency."

"The Board qualified the situation as a crisis," which probably refutes what Battistelli has been telling the media since then. This is a "view challenged by the President," so he clearly chooses to live in a world of his own.

"The above adds that "the matters under examination are to be addressed as a matter of absolute urgency.""It should be noted that "an informal meeting with the President was decided." We don't know the date yet (if any was agree on already).

The crisis is so big in fact that "the Board decided to postpone the other items on the agenda to its next meeting." The item added to the agenda at the 90th minute was treated as so urgent that everything else got thrown aside. And Battistelli still insists that everything is under control? Who is he kidding?

"And Battistelli still insists that everything is under control?"The last item above speaks of the Boards of Appeal and says they'll invite "some representatives of the BoA for an exchange of views ahead of its next meeting."

Maybe they should invite that judge whom Battistelli illegally suspended (on 'house ban') and learn from that judge about Željko Topić, in case they don't know enough already (everyone seems to be aware by now), whereupon they may finally get down to the core of many of these issues that keep escalating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Maintenance Reminder
We'll carry on publishing
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
"just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
 
Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
Many companies fake their health and their size
Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
Techrights Was Always a Community Site
The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
Remember what happened to Skype last year
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News
There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
"HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day