 The Enlarged Board also decided that public oral proceedings would be held in June 2016, in order to discuss the merits of the case.However, shortly before the scheduled oral proceedings, the Enlarged Board received a letter from the president of the EPO, who was not a party to the proceedings, indicating that he considered the planned public oral hearing and the hearing of witnesses from the Office as "unlawful".Following this intervention from the president of the EPO, the Enlarged Board considered that it could only proceed further with the proceedings if the chairman of the Administrative Council (the "petitioner" that started the proceedings, and appointing authority of the president) distanced himself from the letter.