When António Campinos 'met' (webchat) Josef Kratochvíl. Zoom in or press the image if those fonts are too fine.

Summary: The EPO's chaotic state, which persists after Benoît Battistelli's departure, is a state of lawlessness and cover-up

According to the official website of the EPO, the Board of the Administrative Council met on Thursday (warning: epo.org link), 16 September 2021.

The Board of the Administrative Council - known as "Board 28" after Article 28 of the EPC - is the secretive inner circle of Council delegates who prepare the agenda for the Council's quarterly meetings. (warning: epo.org link)

The meetings of "Board 28" are also attended by the President of the Office.

"The dialogue refers to the ongoing crisis triggered by the recent ILOAT judgments striking down Battistelli's "Vichyite" Strike Regulations."The cartoon tries to imagine the dialogue which might have taken place between EPO President Campinos and the Chair of the Administrative Council, Josef Kratochvíl, during the latest "Board 28" meeting.

The dialogue refers to the ongoing crisis triggered by the recent ILOAT judgments striking down Battistelli's "Vichyite" Strike Regulations.

These grossly unlawful regulations were rubber-stamped by the Council at its 136^th meeting in June 2013.

On that occasion 28 delegations voted in favour of Battistelli's proposal and 7 abstained. This means that there were three delegations that were not present for the vote.

"In the case of the Czech Republic, the head of delegation at the time was Josef Kratochvíl."The absentee delegations were those from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Liechtenstein.

In the case of the Czech Republic, the head of delegation at the time was Josef Kratochvíl. For some unknown reason Kratochvíl missed the vote on the "Strike Regulations". He obviously had more pressing matters to attend to than trying to safeguard the fundamental rights of EPO staff.

The records of the HIPO claim that the head of delegation Miklós Bendzsel participated in the 136^th meeting of the Administrative Council. However, this claim is contradicted by the official EPO minutes of the meeting which list the participating Hungarian representatives as Judit Hajdú and Johanna Stadler.

"As in the case of the Czech delegation, the acting head of the Hungarian delegation (Judit Hadjú) was absent for the vote on Battistelli's "Strike Regulations"."In June 2013 Bendzel's deputy Mihály Ficsor was off attending a diplomatic conference convened by the WIPO in Marrakech for signing a "Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled".

As in the case of the Czech delegation, the acting head of the Hungarian delegation (Judit Hadjú) was absent for the vote on Battistelli's "Strike Regulations". ⬆