Citing internal communications, EU-Lisa, which oversees the system, filed the lawsuit in Estonia in December 2025 after the consortium missed delivery deadlines and challenged warnings and financial penalties, according to the report, according to a report in the Financial Times. The European Union’s border technology agency has sued IBM, France’s biggest IT company Atos and Italy’s Leonardo over repeated delays in developing its Entry/Exit System (EES).
The biometric border system was originally due to launch in 2022 but reached full rollout only this year. Its introduction has been marked by technical problems and hours-long airport queues across Europe during the summer.
Project derailed by hardware and software glitches
The passport-free travel area covers 29 European countries, most of them European Union ((EU) members. In 2023, EU-Lisa nearly doubled its annual EES budget to €40 million by moving money from other projects, according to accounts cited by the FT. Some EU countries are still acquiring scanners, the FT reported. Estonia’s Harju county court confirmed that the civil case had been filed. It was previously reported that Atos had used its Moscow office to procure software for the border system.
No hearings had taken place or been scheduled, according to the newspaper. EU-Lisa declined to discuss the proceedings but said the case had “no impact on the functioning” of the EES, which it described as fully operational across Europe. The European Commission also said the dispute concerned development delays rather than the system’s operation. EU-Lisa said it had identified no security breaches. The EU’s anti-fraud office, Olaf, found sufficient grounds for further investigation and said Russian involvement, if established, would breach the contract, according to an internal report reviewed by the newspaper.
The EES requires travellers from outside the bloc to register fingerprints and photographs when first entering the Schengen area. It is designed to help authorities identify visa overstayers and people wanted by law enforcement. EU-Lisa disclosed the lawsuit in annual accounts published in July, saying that it had pursued contractual and legal remedies following delivery delays to protect its financial interests. Further delays raised hardware and software maintenance expenses. The project has also faced questions about cybersecurity.