The Common Agricultural Policy Single Farm Payment and Support Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2005

Withholding and recovery of payments

4.—(1) Where–

(a) an applicant; or

(b) a person (other than an applicant) who was at that time an employee or agent of an applicant or a keeper,

intentionally obstructs an authorised person, or a person accompanying such authorised person and acting under the instructions of such person, from exercising a power under paragraph 2, or fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a request made by an authorised person when carrying out a specified control measure, the Scottish Ministers shall be entitled to recover on demand as a debt from that applicant the whole of any Scheme payment to that applicant.

(2) Where an applicant is liable to repay all or part of a Scheme payment in accordance with Article 73 of Commission Regulation 796/2004, the amount of the repayment, together with the interest on that amount calculated in accordance with paragraph 6, shall be recoverable as a debt on demand to Scottish Ministers.

(3) In any legal proceedings brought pursuant to sub-paragraph (2), a certificate of the relevant competent authority which–

(a) sets out the LIBOR applicable during a specified period; and

(b) includes a statement that the Bank of England or the coordinating body notified the Scottish Ministers of that rate for that period,

shall be evidence of the rate applicable during that period.

(4) In sub-paragraph (3), “the coordinating body” means the coordinating body referred to in Article 4(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1258/1999 on the financing of the common agricultural policy(1).

(1)

O.J. No. L 160, 26.6.99, p.103.