Article 28 Suspension of payments
United Kingdom
The Commission shall suspend the payments and, stating its reasons, request that the OCT submit its comments and, where appropriate, carry out any corrections, within a specified period of time where, after completing the necessary checks, it concludes that:
an OCT has not complied with its obligations; or
all or part of the SPD justifies neither part nor the whole of the EDF contribution; or
there are serious failings in the management or control systems which could lead to systemic irregularities.
The period of time within which the OCT concerned may respond to a request to submit its comments and, where appropriate, make corrections, shall be two months, except in duly justified cases where a longer period may be agreed by the Commission.
Where the OCT objects to the observations made by the Commission, the OCT and the Member State concerned shall be invited to a partnership meeting by the Commission, in which all sides shall try to reach an agreement on the observations and the conclusions to be drawn from them.
Whenever the OCT objects to the observations made by the Commission and an ad hoc partnership meeting takes place, the three-month period under paragraph 5 within which the Commission may take a decision shall begin to run from the date of the partnership meeting.
Where the Commission proposes financial corrections, the OCT shall be given the opportunity to demonstrate, through an examination of the files concerned, that the actual extent of irregularity was less than the Commission's assessment.
Except in duly justified cases, the time allowed for this examination shall not exceed a further period of two months after the two-month period referred to in paragraph 1.
The Commissions shall take account of any evidence supplied by the OCT within the time limits.
At the end of the period set out in paragraph 2, the Commission shall, where no agreement has been reached and the OCT has not made the corrections, take account of any comments made by the OCT and Member States and decide within three months to:
reduce the payments; or
make the financial corrections required by cancelling all or part of the EDF allocation.
Without prejudice to paragraphs 1 to 5, the Commission may, after due verification, suspend all or part of an interim payment where it finds that the expenditure concerned is linked to a serious irregularity which has not been corrected and that immediate action is needed.
The Commission shall inform the OCT concerned of the action taken and the reasons for it. Where, after five months, the reasons for the suspension persists or the OCT concerned has not notified the Commission of the measures taken to correct the serious irregularity, the provisions laid down in Article 30 shall apply.