For those who were not aware – popular blogger Berlaymonster was (I believe…) the first to break the story about the “accident prone” eurocrats who got large compensation for claiming a permanent partial invalidity. (A great advert for Europerks on the blog by the way).

The audit discovered 46 members of staff collected 35 000 euros on average, 23 more than 50 000, eight claimed more than 80 000 and one or two cashed in almost 300 000 euros from the injury benefit system accorded to those on the European Commission's payroll.
Accidents… or “Accidents”; OLAF has referred the case to the local authorities, but neglected (oopsies) to inform the fonctionnaires about the matter. Fourteen of them brought forward a complaint, and were rewarded with 3000 euros each in damages.

(We are inclined to believe that those 14 were not cheating the system- and actually suffered accidents. Either that, or they have big big… nerve...)

*Excerpt from the Monster’s site (http://berlaymonster.blogspot.com/)

14 EU fonctionnaires investigated for suspected injury benefit fraud have been awarded an extra 3000 euros each from the taxpayer, after it transpired the EU's fraud watchdog failed to tell the accident-prone civil servants that they were to face criminal proceedings in Italy.

The ruling is the culmination of investigations dating back to 2002 into suspected widespread benefit plundering at the EU's Joint Research Centre, based out of the Italian town of Ispra on the shore of Lake Maggiore.
In an initial 2002 audit, 230 JRC eurocrats - one fifth of the total headcount there - were found to be claiming a permanent partial invalidity.

5.7 million euros were disbursed to the accident-prone staff between 1996 and 2002.

On average this worked out at around 25 000 euros each.

But many gleaned much more.

The audit discovered 46 members of staff collected 35 000 euros on average, 23 more than 50 000, eight claimed more than 80 000 and one or two cashed in almost 300 000 euros from the injury benefit system accorded to those on the European Commission's payroll.

76 of the 230 even had the misfortune to suffer a second accident, increasing their claims.

But 42 of them ...

42 ...

42 members of staff out of little over 1000 ...

declared AT LEAST NINE ACCIDENTS EACH between January 1986 and July 2003.

That, according to the EU fraud office OLAF, 'could appear, at first sight, suspect, and should be the object of an indepth review' (sharp-as-a-tack, OLAF).

But on referring the case to the Italian judiciary to conduct an investigation under local penal law, OLAF neglected to inform the mishap-ridden fonctionnaires.