Bonum Certa Men Certa

Censored EPO Publication: Battistelli Can Have His Multi-Billion Euro EPO Scam, So Why Can't Campinos Too?

Earlier today: European Commission's Thierry Breton Covers Up EPO Corruption For His Friend Benoît Battistelli

Summary: Mr. Campinos, seeing what Mr. Battistelli has managed to get away with (the Commission approves, having been infiltrated by friends of the ringleaders), piggybacks or follows the steps of his appointer by blasting almost a billion euros on a worthless project with no real purpose and the Central Staff Committee (CSC) warns it has "very high risk of mismanagement and fraud"

AS EXPECED, THE EPO does not want its staff to be informed. It's not helpful (to oneself) when people receive information about one's crimes. This is a lot bigger (in terms of financial scale) than FIFA/UEFA scandals. Techrights will be publishing censored EPO publications this week; we have some securities in place, e.g. in case of censorship attempts. We accomplish this by decentralisation, notably mass dissemination to and from many nodes that can serve the suppressed pages.



Taking a breakToday we start by publishing a document about buildings the EPO planned to build at a massive cost (prior to the pandemic). António Campinos likes to pretend that the Office has a financial crisis while Benoît Battistelli loses hundreds of millions of euros of EPO money by gambling that money away. Why was a criminal put in charge of a law school? You know a "scheme" when you see one and it's not hard to see who will benefit from it...

"You know a "scheme" when you see one and it's not hard to see who will benefit from it...""Burning money to create a burning deck," the Committee of EPO staff (CSC) called the building projects. "Management is currently censoring a CSC paper about Mr Campinos' building investment program," it noted. We've already given examples of Campinos and his colleagues censoring the CSC as early as 2018. "We ask ourselves whether the Building Investment Program (CA/43/19) is in line with sound housekeeping," the CSC said. "Moreover, the focus should be on staff needs for accommodation. We request the Administrative Council to consider putting a caveat on the programme in its present form: we need to first explore scenarios and work on the programme of requirements in a truly inclusive manner, involving the Staff Committees as user representatives. After adoption, the programme should be monitored by an independent body to limit the risks of mismanagement and fraud."

Well, those "risks of mismanagement and fraud" are more than just risks but a reality; mismanagement and fraud had gone on for years prior to this project. Here's the summary of the full publication:

Summary: Burning money to create a burning deck



The Central Staff Committee appreciates the commitment to preserving the EPO’s patrimony in a state that it provides a healthy and motivating working environment and aims at improving sustainability. The proposed programme requires unprecedented expenditure. We ask ourselves whether this is in line with sound housekeeping. The planned investment over more than EUR 1 billion also appears to have future sales of property in mind. It presupposes that future owners would find the EPO’s definition of modern and state-of-the-art attractive and suitable for their respective needs. It may also be the case that inflated, unachievable, values of buildings will be used for future planning decisions. With planning concepts for workspaces changing over time it is impossible to predict what a future owner might require at an undetermined point of sale. We feel that this perspective should not feature at all in any building or refurbishment plans of the EPO. The focus should be on staff needs for accommodation. A possible sale of PschorrHöfe 7 without considering abandoning the lease of Haar does not appear to be thought through.

Initiatives to preserve the value of our patrimony enjoy the support of staff, whilst increasing its value for increasing’s sake does not, and especially not at a time where a flawed financial study paves the way to heavy cuts in salaries, allowances and pensions. The building of an “engaged, knowledgeable and collaborative organisation” does not require many of the initiatives at the base of the current program. The Building Investment Program is burning money to help create the burning deck painted in the Financial Study for preparing for instance an affordability-issue for tax-compensation on pensions. Faced with such prospects it is no wonder that staff are very suspicious of building projects that are not only excessive but also detrimentally affect the day-to-day work and, ultimately, staff health. It is undisputed that some renovation of old buildings and maintenance is necessary. But investments here should be driven by needs, not by aspirations not serving the staff’s – and therefore the Office’s – interests.

We request the Administrative Council to consider putting a caveat on the presented Building Investment Program and to instead encourage the President to first explore scenarios and work on the programme of requirements in a truly inclusive manner, involving the Staff Committees as user representatives. A revised Building Investment Program should then be presented to the AC.

Cost transparency, cost control, the lack of adequate planning, the Office’s capacity and even its ability to manage such projects were an issue for New Main as well as for the Isar-refurbishment (see CA/7/12, C. Report on the project costs). A program-value of in excess of EUR 1bn combined with the intended types of contract entails a very high risk of mismanagement and fraud occurring in the various phases of the program. The Administrative Council should not be put in a position again where it grudgingly has to approve further expenditure. The program should be monitored by an independent body over the whole life-cycle of the program, with uninhibited access to all information sources and reporting directly to the Administrative Council. An Audit Committee analogous to the one defined in CA/D 9/09 comes to mind.


Now, with the buildings on the back-burner (at least not burned), the Office suddenly claims to have a huge deficit though it's merely an excuse for robbing EPO staff and blow billions of euros on other scams like Battistelli's. This is like classic organised crime and it has become so pervasive that friends of the perpetrators now occupy positions of power in the EU/EC. Where's the media? Where are the journalists? Oh, we can see where...

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
 
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Links 11/06/2025: More Vulnerabilities Found in 'Smart' Phones, China Extends Reach in the Pacific
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/06/2025: Grain and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Links 11/06/2025: "Quantum" Hype From IBM, US Closer to Martial Law, and “The Nation” Celebrates Milestone
Links for the day
IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025