Meeting of the Administrative Council (29-30 June 2011)
With an annual operation budget of close to 1.5 billion Euros the EuropeanPatent Organisation needs a strong governance mechanism to guarantee goodpractice and transparency. This is particularly important since due to itsimmunity the EPO is not subject to the checks and balances common in most national systems.
In order to improve the existing governance, the previous President, Ms Brimelow, proposed the introduction of an Audit Committee (seeCA/140/08).
The Administrative Council, at the time chaired by Mr Battistelli, approvedthe proposal (seeCA/D 9/09).
As President of the EPO, Mr Battistelli recentlyproposed to abolish the Audit Committee (CA/55/11).
The Council, once again, approved.
The Staff Union of the EPO considers the abolition of the Audit Committeepremature and instead argues that further measures to strengthen goodgovernance such as the introduction of a whistle-blower policy and a Code ofConduct are necessary before removing existing mechanisms.