Follow-up on hearings
Article 11
1
The hearing officer shall produce a transcript or a meaningful summary of the hearings:
a
where hearings among interested parties with different interests are organised, a transcript or a meaningful summary shall be made available to all participants in the hearing and shall be included in the file open for consultation by interested parties;
b
where hearings between an individual interested party or a group of interested parties with similar interests and the Commission services are organised, a transcript or a meaningful summary shall be made available to all participants in the hearing. These participants may submit a reasoned request for confidentiality of certain information contained in the transcript or the summary. The hearing officer shall decide on these requests after hearing the Commission services responsible for the investigation and where necessary other services. The non-confidential version of the transcript or summary of the hearing shall be included in the file for consultation by interested parties.
2
The hearing officer may convey recommendations to the Commission services responsible for the investigation in accordance with Article 4(4) of this Decision. The Commission services responsible for the investigation shall inform the hearing officer within a reasonable period of time before the adoption of a final legal act whether and how they have taken these recommendations into account and shall provide the hearing officer with a copy of the draft legal act.
3
The hearing officer shall submit regular reports to the member of the Commission responsible for trade policy with a copy to the Director-General on hearings with individual parties or a group of interested parties with similar interests as provided for in Article 18 of this Decision, unless the case requires an immediate recommendation to the member of the Commission responsible for trade policy or the Director-General.
4
Any recommendations made to the Commission services responsible for the investigation and the reports and observations to the member of the Commission responsible for trade policy and the Director-General made by the hearing officer shall be considered confidential internal documents.
5
If a hearing among parties is organised, the hearing officer shall prepare a written final report on the respect of the rights of the interested parties. This report may be modified by the hearing officer in the light of any amendments to the draft legal act up to the time of a final legal act.