Bonum Certa Men Certa

Inside the EPO During Corona: The Hoax 'Study' From Campinos and Donald Trump Associate (Mercer) Debunked, EPO Management Uninterested Because Facts Are Inconvenient

Today's EPO, Europe's second-largest institution, rejects science and facts

Campinos in Oktoberfest 2018



Summary: The Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) highlights the degree of shamelessness, audacity and the sheer nerve EPO administration now has; when objectively refuted and presented with evidence to show that it is wrong the management responds "with mere hand-waving"

BACK in summer a document outlining the flaws in the so-called 'study' about the EPO's financial situation was preceded by this concise text:

The EPO’s financial situation has always been good, and right now it is excellent. Financial studies claiming the contrary are usually a prelude for cuts in staff benefits. The 2019 study by Mercer and Wyman is no exception.

Although the EPO’s currently makes a budget surplus of about €400m /year (20% of the budget), Mercer and Wyman predict an overall €3.8bn deficit by 2038 and endorse the President’s suggestion to add a €1.9-2bn “buffer” when closing the alleged gap.

The principal means planned to fill the alleged gap will be a reform of the annual adjustment method for the staff’s salaries and pensions. Ernst & Young has performed an analysis which fully confirmed our earlier findings. Comparing the key assumptions of the 2019 study with those of other EPO documents, Ernst & Young found that the 2019 study consistently took a more conservative approach. It is clear that the EPO has no deficit. On the contrary, under normal circumstances the EPO will continue to generate surpluses.

The EPO already has an operating surplus of about €400m/year. What is the President planning to do with the additional €2bn that he plans to save on the back of staff by changing the salary adjustment method?


As we noted earlier this week, Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos basically gamble -- for personal gain -- with billions of euros of money that the EPO's isn't even supposed to hoard. It's a massive scandal waiting to break out (the corporate media is too full of cowards and too corruptible to make this a front page story).

The full document reads as follows:

25.05.2020 su20028cp – 0.2.1/4.2.1/0.3.2

Background to the Ernst & Young analysis



Introduction The EPO’s financial situation has always been good, and right now it is excellent. Financial studies claiming the contrary are usually a prelude for cuts in staff benefits. The 2019 study by Mercer and Wyman is no exception. Although the EPO’s currently makes a budget surplus of about €400m /year (20% of the budget), Mercer and Wyman predict an overall €3.8bn deficit by 2038 and endorse the President’s suggestion to add a €1.9-2bn “buffer” when closing the alleged gap. The principal means planned to fill the alleged gap will be a reform of the annual adjustment method for the staff’s salaries and pensions1,2.

Deaf ears SUEPO and the Staff Committee quickly pointed out that there are major flaws in the 2019 financial study3. Representatives of the EPO pensioners’ association did the same4. Assuming that expenditure continues to rise with no increase in income – as Mercer and Wyman did for the EPO – is unrealistic and leads to dire predictions for any organisation. But the President and the delegates in the Administrative Council clearly did not want to listen.

Heading for a conflict We expect the Administrative Council to approve the new salary adjustment method in their upcoming meeting. If so, then the only route to challenge that decision will be legal, with the ILO-AT as the final instance. Like the Council, ILO-AT is more inclined to listen to the EPO’s administration than to EPO staff. The staff representation is not heard at all – neither the Staff Committee nor SUEPO have any standing at ILO-AT. We therefore wanted to have a professional counter-study to provide staff with authoritative support in the complaints that will inevitably follow an unfavorable decision by the Council.

What were the conditions? Our first approach to Ernst & Young was met with hesitancy to accept the mandate. It was made clear to us that they would not comment on the EPO study other than on the basis of solid documentary evidence available in the public domain. For that, they proposed to compare the assumptions used in the 2019 study with those used in the 2016 study by Deloitte and other data sources published by the EPO. We agreed to this proposal since it increases the credibility of the analysis. But Ernst & Young also demanded very stringent use restrictions that we could not accept. After intense discussions we agreed on a

____ 1 The SUEPO Salary Simulator estimates your personal financial loss. In a video we look back at the last months and explain the impact of the new method on our future salaries and pensions. 2 “The Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP) – Timeline”, su20026cp, 19.05.2020. This paper provides an overview of what happened over the last months. 3 The Financial Study: Yet Another Hoax (sc19070cp, sc19071cp, sc19076cp and sc19081cp) 4 Letter to the AC by the EPO Pensioners’ Association, ex19151cl, 26.11.2019




compromise: copies of the document can be given to the EPO’s President, the Vice-Presidents, the Council delegates and various other political actors as well as ILO-AT, but we have no permission to publish the document on the SUEPO websites and our members are to be given protected read-on access only.

The results Even with their very stringent approach (requiring contradictory published EPO documents or obvious methodological flaws, before commenting), Ernst & Young fully confirmed our earlier findings5. Comparing the key assumptions of the 2019 study with those of other EPO documents, Ernst & Young found that the 2019 study consistently took a more conservative approach.

Ernst & Young estimated what they called the “illustrative impact” of those highly conservative assumptions. Their main findings are the following:

- more realistic assumptions (in line with those of the RFPPS actuaries) for the contribution levels to the RFPSS and the EPOTIF reduce the alleged gap by €2.3bn - more realistic assumptions of the return on the RFPPS and EPOTIF assets in line with other EPO documents reduce the gap by €4.0bn, - taking into account expected future income from patents existing in 2038 (omitted in the 2019 study) reduces the alleged gap by €4.7bn, - assuming that EPO internal fees will rise with inflation (rather than stay constant until 2038) reduces the gap by €1.6bn. - Ernst & Young further pointed out a methodological error in the 2019 study that inflates the gap by €1.3bn.

The conclusion ... Ernst & Young warned us that the above amounts cannot simply be added up because some are interdependent. Nevertheless, it is clear that the EPO has no deficit. On the contrary, under normal circumstances the EPO will continue to generate surpluses. We note that the EPO did not communicate its alleged gap outside the EPO. The external auditors who assess the financial situation of the EPO every year see no gap needing urgent action. The same applies to the actuaries of the RFPSS. The systematic bias towards unrealistically high levels of caution in the 2019 financial study and the purely internal communication show the clear intention of the EPO to convince staff that there is a financial gap where there is none for the purpose of reducing staff benefits.

... and a question This nevertheless leaves us with the old question: cui bono? As indicated above, the EPO already has an operating surplus of about €400m/year.

What is the President planning to do with the additional €2bn that he plans to save on the back of staff by changing the salary adjustment method?

SUEPO Central

____ 5 “Selected analyses by Ernst & Young of the 2019 Financial Study of the European Patent Office”, su20025cp, 19.05.2020. SUEPO members can ask for access to the Ernst & Young analysis by sending an email to requestaccessreport@suepo.org including full name and place of employment.


Not so long afterwards SUEPO also wrote to the management -- in an open letter to Campinos and his friend (whom he gave a high-paying job):

10 June 2020 su20030cl – 0.3.1

Open letter

To: President, VP4 Cc: AC delegations

Ernst & Young analysis of the 2019 Financial Study of the European Patent Office

Dear Mr Campinos, Dear Ms Simon,

You have on various occasions criticized the analysis by Ernst & Young of the 2019 Financial Study.

More recently you seemed to focus on the indication “reliance restricted” which is written on the second page of the analysis by Ernst & Young. You seemed to imply that this indication renders the findings meaningless.

However, an indication which means in legal terms the same as “reliance restricted” can also be found in the Financial Study (CA/46/19, pages 133-134) and in the follow-up document (CA/83/19, page 235). Such an indication is indeed standard for external expert opinions. We cite:

“This report is not intended for general circulation or publication, nor is it to be reproduced, quoted or distributed for any purpose without the prior written permission of Oliver Wyman. There are no third party beneficiaries with respect to this report, and Oliver Wyman does not accept any liability to any third party (CA/46/19, page 132, €§1 & CA/83/19, page 135, €§1)

We resent the repeated attempts of the administration to discredit the Ernst & Young analysis. We are still waiting for serious comments on the substance of the analysis. The findings of Ernst & Young, confirming earlier observations by SUEPO, staff representation and by the pensioners’ association, raise serious questions about the actions taken by the administration during the last year in order to reform the salary adjustment method, which cannot be dismissed with mere hand-waving.

Also in order to avoid a protracted legal battle, we urge you to enter into a discussion on the substance of the matter with the aim of reaching a solution appropriate under current circumstances and which is acceptable to staff.

Sincerely yours, SUEPO Central


In their message to staff they said: "we addressed Mr Campinos and Ms Simon (VP4) to urge them to enter into a discussion on the substance..." (echoing the above)

The staff is being told that much of the blame should be put squarely on Campinos and his friend. "Mr Campinos and Ms Simon (VP4)," they say, "have on various occasions criticized the analysis by Ernst & Young of the 2019 Financial Study on purely formal aspects."

What do Mr Campinos and Ms Simon even know about studies? Have they ever conducted any? They're not scientists and they don't study anything. They're just propagandists in formal clothing and no sense of shame.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Sirius Open Source in Court
I personally was a witness and an alibi
Microsoft Has Hundred of Layoffs Again, Same Week as the Company's Fake Results
those people were in effect Microsoft employees, just classified as contractors
Gemini Turns 6 Soon, Still Growing
Will we see 3,050 before Gemini turns 6 in summer?
Richard Stallman Re-Confirmed by the Free Software Foundation
as expected
Links 30/04/2025: Pakistan-India Tensions Grow, Facebook Banning Publishers Before Elections
Links for the day
Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues
Links 30/04/2025: Censorship in the Guise/Clothing of "Combatting Deepfakes", Mass Surveillance Increasingly Framed as Catchphrase "AI"
Links for the day
Why Techrights Attracts SLAPPs From American Microsofters Who Literally Strangle Women and Rely on the Most Unscrupulous Law Firms
"the SLAPPs targeted at TR [Techrights] shows that Orwell was right: Journalism is about exposure, everything else are PubRels."
The Problem at the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Is Vastly Bigger Than Its Rigged Elections
Elections and election-rigging at the OSI are a symptom
IBM Allegedly to Sell More Parts of the Company While Outsourcing to India, Microsoft Now Goes After Unions
They both have cash and debt problems
Slopwatch: Google Noise ("News"), Linux Security (Slopfarm), and BetaNoise (Serial Slopper)
Today there's no lack of LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Links 30/04/2025: "Brian Lumley’s Necroscope Series" and "Death In The Afternoon"
Links for the day
Links 29/04/2025: Microsoft Infosys Layoffs, 'Popcorn Lung' With Vapers, Hong Kong Banning Possession of e-cigarettes in Public
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2025: Hey-Hi (AI) Isn't Your Friend/Lover, Mastodon is a Mess, and Mandelbrot Programming
Links for the day
Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
Just Sending More and More Threats Does Not Change the Fact We Got Abused for Many Years and Women Got Strangled
Wanting a "gag order" - or sometimes injunctions - by sending many threats
Links 29/04/2025: Water Scarcity, LLM Slop Backfiring Again in Legal Documents
Links for the day
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025