1.The quality requirements that must be fulfilled for a product to be taken into intervention shall be checked as follows:
The intervention agency shall take samples in the presence of the applicant or his duly authorised agent. Three samples shall be taken at each sampling, intended respectively for:
the applicant,
the store where take over is to take place,
the intervention agency. This sample shall undergo the agency's own test.
(a)In the case of a delivery, samples shall be taken for each part-delivery (by lorry, barge, railway wagon, etc.), at a ratio of one sample to 10 tonnes of rice.
The requisite conditions shall be checked on the basis of a representative sample of each part delivery. The representative sample shall be made up of the samples intended for the store.
(b)Where Article 7 applies, checking when taking over is at the applicant's store shall be based on a representative sample of the lot offered. This representative sample shall consist of the average result of the samples intended for the store. The number of samples to be taken is obtained by dividing the quantity of the lot offered by 20; a representative sample shall consist of no more than 20 samples, however.
The check should establish that the goods comply with the minimum quality requirements. Should this not be the case, the lot shall not be taken over.
In the case of a delivery, before the lot enters the intervention store the examination of each part-delivery can be restricted to a check on the moisture content and impurity level and verification that no live insects are present. However, if it later becomes apparent when the check is finalised that a part-delivery does not satisfy the minimum quality requirements, the lot shall be refused for take over. The entire lot shall be withdrawn at the applicant's expense.
If the intervention agency in a Member State is able to check all the minimum quality requirements for each part-delivery before it enters the store, it shall refuse take-over of any part-delivery that fails to satisfy these requirements.
2.Where the goods are accepted, once the examination in accordance with paragraph 1 has been carried out the precise characteristics of the goods shall be identified with a view to establishing the price to be paid to the applicant. This price shall be established for the lot offered on the basis of the weighted average of the test results for the representative samples as defined in paragraph 1.
The test results shall be notified to the applicant in the take-over record provided for in Article 9.
3.Should the applicant contest the result of the test carried out to determine the price under paragraph 2, a laboratory approved by the competent authorities shall carry out a further, detailed analysis of the characteristics of the goods using new representative samples made up equally of samples held by the applicant and by the store. The weighted average of the test results for these representative samples shall provide the result.
The result of these analyses shall be final and shall decide the price to be paid to the applicant. The cost of carrying out these new analyses shall be borne by the losing party.