"I hope that German police will arrest this corrupt Balkans gangster [Željko Topić] and transfer him to Croatia for trial soon" --Rikard Frgačić, an early victim of Topić (in Croatia)

Summary: Benoît Battistelli's right-hand man, Željko Topić, is under the false impression that yet more threats against staff of the EPO will help contain the crisis rather than further inflame it

Željko Topić must never have heard of or learned about the Streisand Effect. He and his circle of bullies (which includes several people and is headed by Battistelli) just don't know a thing about crisis management.

Topić is finding himself in the shoes of Richard Nixon (recall Watergate), falling deeper into the mud at every step as he attempts to cover up the abuses, usually with even worse abuses than before.

Based on this letter just published by IP Kat, Topić and by extension the EPO's management as a whole decided continue with aggression, having refused to conduct some kind of peace negotiations with the union.

"Topić has quite a history bullying his critics in his home country, Croatia, only to formally lose against them (after costing them a lot of money, agony, and several years in court."The management's aggression shows poor taste and zero tact. Over the past year or two the name of the EPO have been associated with negative things and the reputation is thoroughly tarnished; rather than respond politely and calmly the management chose to become even more aggressive, proving and at times further legitimising their critics' gripes. So they really think that more threats are going to be constructive and actually help end the revolt? Of course it is only going to inflame (and get involved) more members or staff and ultimately serve to discredit the abuser, proving yet again that this circular and wide-ranging cycle of gagging/muzzling/censorship by retribution (or threats thereof) remains impractical and counterproductive. It doesn't even work because despite threats from Battistelli, SUEPO is back to publicly posting new material today (see the SUEPO site for updates).

Topić has quite a history bullying his critics in his home country, Croatia [1, 2, 3], only to formally lose against them (after costing them a lot of money, agony, and several years in court [1, 2, 3, 4]). Strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, is what this strategy is best known as.

Here is the latest from Topić and Raimund Lutz, another member of Battistelli's mob:

Your rights

02.10.2015 

To all staff 

It has been recently brought to our attention that colleagues who turn to SUEPO for their pending legal cases against the Office are asked by SUEPO to sign a standard agreement in order to obtain financial support for the lawyer's fees. 

Out of its duty of care towards EPO employees, the Office requested an external legal advice to assess the conformity of this agreement to the applicable national law and has concluded that it does not fulfil the required standards of legality. 

Unions may be entitled to provide legal support to colleagues and to propose standard contracts to that effect. However, such contracts must comply with the applicable law and basic fundamental rights as recognised in all European countries and under general principles of law. 

More specifically, several clauses of this agreement seem to be against good faith and/or national law under which such contract is signed and are thus unlawful and void. 

For example, Article 13 of the agreement reads as follows:

‘Where an external lawyer has been retained, as defined above,

• (a) The Applicant shall at all times entrust the whole procedure to the lawyer, either directly or through SUEPO's Legal Advisor.

• (b) The Applicant shall at no time communicate directly with the Office on matters concerning the litigation without the prior and express approval of the external lawyer or the Legal Advisor.

• (c) If the Applicant fails to meet the two requirements (a) and (b) above, financial aid by SUEPO may be revoked at any time and stage of the procedure.'

This standard clause prohibiting the staff member from communicating with the administration and therefore from taking any steps without requesting the express prior permission of SUEPO or SUEPO's lawyers restricts unlawfully the staff member's freedom of self-determination of his/her own case, infringes basic principles of the Law on general terms and conditions of employment, restricts his/her freedom of communication and constitutes an infringement of basic rights of occupational freedom in a dubious way. 

In case such unlawful clauses are used to block the possibility of amicable settlement or to exercise pressure to file further unjustified or unwanted litigation, this could be considered detrimental to the general interests of justice as well as an infringement of basic human rights of the staff member.

As a result, staff may consider contesting such contracts as void. 

In view of the above, the Office recommends staff to check with independent external lawyers of their choice the specific agreements they are asked to sign before doing so. 

If staff members are already engaged under such contract, they are in the same way and to the same extent also invited to check the lawfulness of the invoicing (proportionality of invoice against services, applicable fees under national law) as cases of overcharged legal fees/ invoices came to the attention of the Office. 

The Office's services remain at the staff's disposal for confidential consultation in case colleagues have already signed such documents and are not certain about the exact legal and financial obligations they have assumed from them. In such a case please contact the Conflict Resolution Unit.

Željko Topić Vice-President DG 4

Raimund Lutz    Vice-President DG 5

As Merpel points out, "the EPO urges its litigious colleagues to take great care to guard against the breach of its human rights by staff union SUEPO. Both real and fictional Kats have memories that are admittedly fallible, but Merpel has this vague recollection that EPO's concern for human rights has been demonstrated more vividly by its defiance of them than by their protection. Was this organisation not called to account earlier this year by a Dutch court, in a judgment that the EPO ignored, trumpeting its immunity from national law? Yet it is the very same national law to which the EPO now, extraordinarily, turns."

Watch this space for follow-ups as so far this month we have been writing about the EPO more than once per day. It's only getting worse for them by the day. Battistelli's EPO is a force of occupation (by corporate interests), much like TPP. People are clever enough to see this and there is hard evidence becoming available. If any of our readers has the EPO's "Closer contacts with major applicants" document, please consider anonymously leaking it to us. We have some important articles on the way. ⬆