1.The Commission, the other institutions, the bodies administering revenue or expenditure on the Union's behalf and recipients shall afford the Court of Auditors all the facilities and give it all the information which the Court of Auditors considers necessary for the performance of its task. They shall place at the disposal of the Court of Auditors all documents concerning the award and performance of contracts financed by the budget and all accounts of cash or materials, all accounting records or supporting documents, and also administrative documents relating thereto, all documents relating to revenue and expenditure, all inventories, all organisation charts of departments, which the Court of Auditors considers necessary for auditing the budgetary and financial outturn report on the basis of records or on the spot auditing and, for the same purposes, all documents and data created or stored electronically.
The internal audit bodies and other services of the national administrations concerned shall afford the Court of Auditors all the facilities which it considers necessary for the performance of its task.
2.The officials whose operations are checked by the Court of Auditors shall:
(a)show their records of cash in hand, any other cash, securities and materials of all kinds, and also the supporting documents in respect of their stewardship of the funds with which they are entrusted, and also any books, registers and other documents relating thereto;
(b)present the correspondence and any other documents required for the full implementation of the audit referred to in Article 159(1).
The information supplied under point (b) of the first subparagraph may be requested only by the Court of Auditors.
3.The Court of Auditors shall be empowered to audit the documents in respect of the revenue and expenditure of the Union which are held by the departments of the institutions and, in particular, by the departments responsible for decisions in respect of such revenue and expenditure, the bodies administering revenue or expenditure on the Union's behalf and the natural or legal persons receiving payments from the budget.
4.The task of establishing that the revenue has been received and the expenditure incurred in a lawful and proper manner and that the financial management has been sound shall extend to the utilisation, by bodies outside the institutions, of Union funds received by way of contributions.
5.Union financing paid to recipients outside the institutions shall be subject to the agreement in writing by those recipients or, failing agreement on their part, by contractors or subcontractors, to an audit by the Court of Auditors into the use made of the financing granted.
6.The Commission shall provide the Court of Auditors, at its request, with any information on borrowing-and-lending operations.
7.Use of integrated computer systems shall not have the effect of reducing access by the Court of Auditors to the supporting documents.