Credit: T. Vyc via Shutterstock The European Union has sued IBM, French IT group Atos and Italian defence company Leonardo over years of delays in developing its new biometric border system, the Financial Times reported on Monday. The case was brought by eu-LISA, the EU agency responsible for large-scale IT systems used in border management and security. According to its annual accounts, published in July, the agency filed the lawsuit in Estonia in December 2025, where it is based.
A spokesperson for Harju County Court, Estonia’s largest district court, confirmed to the FT that the civil case had been filed there. No hearings have yet taken place or been scheduled. The dispute concerns the Entry/Exit System (EES), which records the fingerprints and photographs of non-EU travellers when they first enter the Schengen area, covering 29 countries. The system is designed to identify people who overstay their permitted time or are wanted by authorities.
Originally scheduled to launch in 2022, the EES only became fully operational in April this year. Its rollout was also plagued by technical problems, with faulty fingerprint scanners contributing to long queues at European airports over the summer. eu-LISA told the FT that the legal dispute had “no impact on the functioning of the Entry/Exit System (EES), which is fully operational across Europe”. The European Commission said the case concerned delays during the system’s development, rather than its current operation. In 2019, eu-LISA awarded the three companies a €142m contract to build the system’s core infrastructure, according to earlier reports.
The contract’s value increased to €212m in 2021, the FT reported. Correspondence seen by the newspaper shows that the agency and the contractors had been arguing over missed deadlines and financial penalties for several years. In October 2021, Atos Belgium and IBM Belgium challenged a fine, citing external factors including the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2022, all three companies objected to revised deadlines and criticised the agency’s management.
The contract expired last year, and a new group of companies has since taken over the work. However, eu-LISA said Atos, Leonardo and IBM remained responsible for the project until August. A 2024 Bloomberg investigation found that agency documents attributed much of the delay to Atos. The FT subsequently reported that the company had used its Moscow office to purchase software for the system. eu-LISA said it had found no security breaches.
Leonardo and Atos declined to comment to the FT, and IBM did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment. Get the TNW newsletter ✕ Close Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
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