Article 8Conditions to be met for tendering
1.Only the following may submit tenders:
(a)slaughterhouses for bovine animals registered or approved in accordance with Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council(1), whatever their legal status; and
(b)livestock or meat traders who have slaughtering undertaken therein on their own account and who are entered in a national VAT register.
2.In response to invitations to tender, interested parties shall submit their tenders to the intervention agencies of the Member States where they have been issued, either by lodging a written bid against a receipt or by any other written means of communication accepted by the intervention agency, with advice of receipt.
The submission of tenders may be the subject of contracts on terms laid down by the intervention agencies and in accordance with their specifications.
3.Interested parties may submit only one tender per category in response to each invitation to tender.
The Member States shall ensure that tenderers are independent of each other in terms of their management, staffing and operations.
Where there are serious indications to the contrary or that tenders are not in line with economic facts, tenders shall be deemed admissible only where the tenderer presents suitable evidence of compliance with the second subparagraph.
Where it is established that a tenderer has submitted more than one tender, all the tenders from that tenderer shall be deemed inadmissible.
4.Tenders shall state:
(a)the name and address of the tenderer;
(b)the quantity tendered, expressed in tonnes, of the products of the categories specified in the notice of invitation to tender;
(c)the price quoted in accordance with Article 15(3), expressed per 100 kg of products of quality R3 in euro rounded to not more than two decimal places.
5.Tenders shall be valid only if:
(a)they relate to at least 10 tonnes;
(b)they are accompanied by a written undertaking from the tenderer to comply with all the provisions relating to the invitation to tender concerned; and
(c)proof is furnished that by the deadline for the submission of tenders the tenderer has lodged a tendering security as provided for in Article 9 in respect of the invitation to tender concerned.
6.Tenders may not be withdrawn after the expiry of the deadline for submission specified in Article 7.
7.Tenders shall be confidential.