The European Union has pressed charges against Atos, IBM, and Leonardo following delays in developing the biometric Entry/Exit System (EES).
“Following the various delays in the delivery of the EES by a contracting consortium, the agency activated the available contractual and legal remedies to protect its financial interests,” eu-LISA confirmed in an annual account.
According to eu-LISA, the lawsuit does not impact how the system currently operates. But it raises concerns about how the border program has taken years of missed deadlines, resulting in a faulty launch. From October 12 to December 31, 2025, the EES recorded 8,180 entry refusals, 283 revoked authorisations, and 479 extended authorisations.
Simultaneously, Jojo Moyes recently made headlines after reportedly being a victim of inaccurate travel records. Notably, she appeared to have overstayed because of a missing departure record. As a result, authorities questioned her permitted stay in the Schengen zone.
Lawsuit Follows Years Of EES Disputes
eu-LISA, the EU agency overseeing large-scale border and security IT systems, filed its claim in an Estonian court on December 22, 2025. The defendants are IBM, Atos and Leonardo, members of the consortium originally tasked with developing the EES central platform.
The 2019 contract was initially valued at €142 million. However, its value rose to €212 million during development.
Correspondence between the agency and the companies points to disagreements over deadlines and financial penalties dating back to 2021. IBM and Atos challenged penalties, citing external factors that included the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in February 2022, all three companies disputed revised delivery deadlines.
Currently, the dispute remains unresolved. The case concerns alleged delays during development, and it does not establish that the contractors caused every problem reported during the system’s rollout. In 2022, eu-LISA Executive Director Krum Garkov said the consortium had “missed all milestones.”
New Consortium Takes Over
Meanwhile, a new group of suppliers has taken responsibility for future development and maintenance of the central EES platform. Sword Services leads the consortium with Netcompany and Sopra Steria, under a four-year framework contract worth €93 million.
The contract covers the core platform, web services, shared components and related interfaces. It also includes work connected to advance passenger information and passenger name record systems.
The handover places two developments side by side: eu-LISA is pursuing legal claims over the original development, while new contractors take on future work. Still, the new contract does not resolve the lawsuit or guarantee that every border crossing will operate smoothly.
What The EES Records
The EES registers entries and departures for eligible non-EU nationals making short stays in participating countries. It collects travel information and biometric identifiers, including facial images and fingerprints, to help authorities calculate how long a traveler may remain.
Generally, short stays allow up to 90 days within any rolling 180-day period. Therefore, accurate entry and departure records matter: a missing exit may cause the system to show a person as remaining in the area after departure.
However, an automated overstay indication is not itself proof of an immigration violation. The system’s information may inform a border check, but officials must assess a person’s circumstances and the accuracy of the underlying record.
The distinction matters because system errors can have consequences even before authorities settle what happened. A traveler may need to explain a discrepancy at a border or provide evidence of their actual movements.
Reported Case Raises Questions About Errors
French border officers questioned novelist Jojo Moyes after an earlier departure from Portugal was missing in her EES travel history. She reportedly said she had spent only 23 days in the Schengen Area during the previous six months.
The account illustrates how an incomplete record may create difficulty for an individual traveler. Yet it does not establish how common such errors are, what caused the reported discrepancy, or whether officials ultimately corrected it.
Diplomacy and Law notes that official information does not establish a reliable EU-wide rate of false overstay classifications. Counts of recorded overstayers, refusals of entry and successful correction requests measure different things. They cannot, on their own, show how often the system wrongly identifies travelers.
Rollout problems also involve different parts of the system. Biometric registration has continued unevenly at border crossings, while software bugs, equipment installation difficulties, and local deployment delays have affected some sites. Those issues involve multiple contractors and national authorities, so they should not be attributed automatically to the defendants in this case.
Travelers Can Seek Corrections
Travelers who believe their EES records are inaccurate can request access to their personal data and ask a competent national authority to correct or complete it. The appropriate request depends on the problem, such as a missing departure or an incorrect date.
Evidence may include boarding passes, airline confirmations, passport stamps or official records showing that a traveler was outside the Schengen Area. A booking alone may not prove that someone completed the journey. Instead, authorities must assess the evidence in the circumstances of each case.
The system began progressive deployment on October 12, 2025, and became fully operational on April 10, 2026, according to the legal analysis. During the rollout, records could be incomplete. Consequently, a separate EU regulation requires authorities to account for possible gaps in historical records created during that period.
Two Tests For The EU
Now, the lawsuit will test whether eu-LISA can establish responsibility for development delays and protect its financial interests. At the same time, the new consortium and national authorities face the practical challenge of maintaining the system and addressing inaccurate records.
eu-LISA says the legal proceedings have no impact on current EES operations. Still, travelers’ experience will depend on whether border checks work reliably and whether authorities can resolve disputed records. The court case addresses the project’s past development; the system’s credibility will also depend on how it handles people affected by errors.
Photo by Carson Masterson on Unsplash
