Article 3

United Kingdom

Contracts shall be drawn up between the vendors and the storage agencies for all products bought in by the latter. The vendors shall be processors or producer organisations recognised or granted preliminary recognition pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2200/96.

However, on a transitional basis, vendors may also be:

in the case of unprocessed dried figs, producers not belonging to producer organisations, until the end of the 2001/02 marketing year,
in the case of unprocessed dried grapes, for the 1999/2000 marketing year, the forms of producer association referred to in Article 13(2)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1621/1999.

The contracts shall be drawn up at least two weeks before the date of delivery and shall stipulate in particular:

(a)

the names and addresses of the parties,

(b)

the approximate quantity of unprocessed dried product to be delivered,

(c)

the address to which the product is to be delivered,

(d)

the date of delivery.

The storage agencies shall forward copies of the contracts to the competent national authority forthwith. They shall retain proof of forwarding.

The products shall be taken over by the storage agencies before the expiry of the time limit laid down in Article 2(1). Where the vendor and the storage agency do not agree on the weight or quality of the product, the latter shall be weighed and an additional sample taken in the presence of a representative of the competent national authority. Where a product does not meet the quality requirements referred to in Article 2(2), the contract shall be cancelled in respect of the quantities that do not meet those requirements; the vendor shall compensate the storage agency in accordance with national provisions.

Where the storage agency is also a vendor, the contract as provided for in paragraph 1 shall be deemed to have been concluded once a document setting out the particulars specified in points (b), (c) and (d) of that paragraph has been forwarded to the competent national authority; the document must be forwarded at least two weeks before the expiry of the time limit laid down in Article 2(1). Takeover of the products by the storage agency, including weighing and quality control operations, shall be carried out in the presence of a representative of the competent national authority.