Awarding a grant
4.—(1) The Secretary of State must, as soon as is reasonably practicable after the closing date, consider all the applications.
(2) He must reject an application where the vessel is not eligible in accordance with paragraph 2.
(3) He must reject an application if he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that there has been any fixing or adjustment of the bid figure by, under or in accordance with any agreement with another person.
(4) He must pay to all the remaining applicants the full bid figure if the total amount of money in the scheme enables him to do so.
(5) Otherwise he must rank the vessels taking into account—
(a)the bid figure;
(b)the tonnage of the vessel; and
(c)the catch of sole in tonnes by that vessel and the fishing effort (the number of days at sea multiplied by the engine power of the vessel) in ICES Area VIIe (as defined in Annex III to Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3880/91 on the submission of nominal catch statistics by Member States fishing in the north-east Atlantic(1)) in the continuous period of twelve months that gives the most advantageous result for the vessel in the two years immediately preceding the closing date for applications.
(6) He must allocate the grant to the vessels that rank highest, giving each grant in full until there is not enough money left in the scheme to pay any more bids in full.
ICES areas, OJ No. L365, 31.12.1991, p. 1.