Section 5 Consideration of applications

As soon as reasonably practicable after the date specified as the closing date for applications in a notice published under paragraph 4(1) the Ministers shall—

The Ministers may reject any application if they consider the amount of the bid in the application to be unreasonable, having regard to—

The Ministers shall reject any application if they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that there has been any fixing or adjustment of the amount of a bid by, under or in accordance with any agreement (whether legally binding or not) or arrangement with another person.

Subject to sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) above and sub-paragraph (5) below, the Ministers shall select applications for approval by proceeding through the rank referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(c) above from the application incorporating the lowest amount bid per capacity unit towards the application incorporating the highest amount bid per capacity unit until the maximum amount of money allocated for the Scheme is reached.

Where as a result of the procedure referred to in sub-paragraph (4) above there are two or more identical bids per capacity unit which are higher than the amount of any other bid which has been selected for approval, and there is insufficient money to meet all of them, in deciding which bid or bids to accept the Ministers may take into account the number of days at sea spent on fishing trips in any part of the relevant area by each of the vessels concerned during the calendar years 1993 and 1994, as recorded in the vessel’s logbook, with a view to giving preference to vessels that spent more days at sea in those years.