1.

“irregularity” means any infringement of a provision of Community law resulting from an act or omission by an economic operator which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the general budget of the Communities by charging an unjustified item of expenditure to the Community budget;

2.

“economic operator” means any natural or legal person or other entity taking part in the administration of assistance from the Funds, with the exception of Member States exercising their prerogatives as a public authority;

3.

“primary administrative or judicial finding” means a first written assessment by a competent authority, either administrative or judicial, concluding on the basis of specific facts that an irregularity has been committed, without prejudice to the possibility that this conclusion may subsequently have to be revised or withdrawn as a result of developments in the course of the administrative or judicial procedure;

4.

“suspected fraud” means an irregularity giving rise to the initiation of administrative and/or judicial proceedings at national level in order to establish the presence of intentional behaviour, in particular fraud, such as is referred to in Article 1(1), point (a), of the Convention on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests;

5.

“bankruptcy” means insolvency proceedings within the meaning of Article 2, point (a), of Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 (*1).

(a)

the identification of the project or measure in question and the project or CCI (common identification code) number;

(b)

the provision which has been infringed;

(c)

the date and source of the first information leading to suspicion that an irregularity had been committed;

(d)

the practices employed in committing the irregularity;

(e)

where appropriate, whether the practice gives rise to a suspicion of fraud;

(f)

the manner in which the irregularity was discovered;

(g)

where appropriate, the Member States and third countries involved;

(h)

the period during which, or the moment at which, the irregularity was committed;

(i)

the national authorities or bodies which drew up the official report on the irregularity and the authorities responsible for administrative and/or judicial follow-up;

(j)

the date on which the primary administrative or judicial finding on the irregularity was established;

(k)

the identity of the natural and/or legal persons involved or of any other participating entities, except where this information is irrelevant for the purposes of combating irregularities, given the nature of the irregularity in question;

(l)

the total budget approved for the operation and the distribution of its co-financing between Community, national, private and other contributions;

(m)

the amount affected by the irregularity and its distribution between Community, national, private and other contributions; where no payment of the public contribution has been made to the persons and/or other entities identified under point (k), the amounts which would have been wrongly paid had the irregularity not been identified;

(n)

the suspension of payments, where applicable, and the possibilities of recovery;

(o)

the nature of the irregular expenditure.

—

cases where the irregularity consists solely of the failure to partially or totally execute a measure co-financed by the Community budget owing to the bankruptcy of the bodies responsible for the implementation of the project or the final recipient. However, irregularities preceding a bankruptcy and cases of suspected fraud must be reported,

—

cases brought to the attention of the administrative authority by the bodies responsible for the implementation of the project and/or the final recipient voluntarily or before detection by the relevant authority, whether before or after the granting of the public contribution,

—

cases where the administrative authority finds a mistake regarding the eligibility of the financed project and corrects the mistake prior to payment of the public contribution.’;