Sacked EPO staff union official responds to Battistelli's IAM letter
Last week, we published a letter from European Patent Office president Benoît Battistelli that took issue with an opinion piece I had written about the firing of Laurent Prunier, a senior official in The Hague branch of the EPO staff union SUEPO. Mr Prunier has been in touch and asked us to publish a response to Mr Battistelli’s letter. We do so here:
Dear Mr Wild,
As the person directly concerned, I am responding to Mr Battistelli's letter to you and would appreciate if you could publish this answer so that your readers can be fully informed.
I deny having ever harassed or defamed anyone (nor have I seen any of my fellow colleagues, staff reps and/or SUEPO officials harassing or defaming anyone).
The alleged "victim" did NOT file a complaint against me. The person who filed it was a very close associate of Mr. Battistelli.
The staff representatives in the disciplinary committee have not found that I was guilty of harassment. That finding was 3:2, only by management side.
The easiest solution for the public to assess the truth vs. story-telling is for Mr Battistelli to lift the confidentiality he imposes on me and I will gladly publish all the documents.
Bien cordialement - Best regards
Laurent Prunier
Given that we have had our say and both Mr Battistelli and Mr Prunier have now had their says, we will not be returning to the specifics of this case unless there are any material changes that we consider worth reporting on. Anyone who wishes to make a comment is free to do so under this current blog or underneath either my initial one or Mr Batistelli’s letter. Any non-libellous contribution will be published.