# Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 447/2014 of 2 May 2014 on the specific rules for implementing Regulation (EU) No 231/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession assistance (IPA II), Article 40: Beneficiaries

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

1. Where there are two or more beneficiaries for an operation in a cross-border cooperation programme, one of them shall be designated by all the beneficiaries as the lead beneficiary.
2. The lead beneficiary shall carry out the following tasks:
(a) lay down the arrangements with other beneficiaries in an agreement comprising provisions that, inter alia, guarantee the sound financial management of the funds allocated to the operation, including the arrangements for recovering amounts unduly paid;
(b) assume responsibility for ensuring implementation of the entire operation;
(c) ensure that expenditure presented by all beneficiaries has been incurred in implementing the operation and corresponds to the activities agreed between all the beneficiaries, and in accordance with the document provided by the managing authority as provided for in paragraph 6;
(d) ensure that the expenditure presented by other beneficiaries has been verified by a controller(s) where this verification is not carried out by the managing authority in accordance with Article 23(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1299/2013.
3. If not otherwise specified in the arrangements referred to in point (a) of paragraph (2), the lead beneficiary shall ensure that the other beneficiaries receive the total amount of the public support as quickly as possible and in full. No amount shall be deducted or withheld and no specific charge or other charge with equivalent effect shall be levied that would reduce those amounts for the other beneficiaries.
4. Lead or sole beneficiaries shall be located in a participating country.
5. Notwithstanding Article 39(2) of this Regulation, an European grouping of territorial cooperation set up in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1082/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council or another legal body established under the laws of one of the participating countries may apply as sole beneficiary for an operation provided that it is set up by public authorities and bodies from at least two participating countries.
6. The managing authority shall provide to the lead or sole beneficiary for each operation a document setting out the conditions for support of the operation, including the specific requirements concerning the products or services to be delivered under the operation, the financing plan and the time-limit for execution.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2014/447/article/40 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-regulation-2014-447/article-40
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.