Application of the administrative penalty
Article 97
1. The administrative penalty provided for in Article 91 shall be imposed where the rules on cross-compliance are not complied with at any time in a given calendar year ('the calendar year concerned'), and where the non-compliance in question is directly attributable to the beneficiary who submitted the aid application or the payment claim in the calendar year concerned. The first subparagraph shall apply mutatis mutandis to beneficiaries who are found not to have complied with the rules on cross-compliance, at any time during three years from 1 January of the year following the calendar year in which the first payment was granted under the support programmes for restructuring and conversion or at any time during one year from 1 January of the year following the calendar year in which the payment was granted under the support programmes for green harvesting referred to in Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013('the years concerned'). 2. In cases in which the land is transferred during the calendar year concerned or the years concerned, paragraph 1 shall also apply where the non-compliance in question is the result of an act or omission directly attributable to the person to whom or from whom the agricultural land was transferred. By way of derogation from the first sentence, where the person to whom the act or omission is directly attributable has submitted an aid application or a payment claim in the calendar year concerned or the years concerned, the administrative penalty shall be imposed on the basis of the total amounts of the payments referred to in Article 92 granted or to be granted to that person. For the purpose of this paragraph, 'transfer' means any type of transaction whereby the agricultural land ceases to be at the disposal of the transferor. 3. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, and subject to the rules to be adopted pursuant to Article 101, Member States may decide not to apply an administrative penalty per beneficiary and per calendar year when the amount of the penalty is EUR 100 or less. Where a Member State decides to make use of the option provided for in the first subparagraph, the competent authority shall, for a sample of beneficiaries, take in the following year the actions necessary to verify that the beneficiary has remedied the findings of non-compliance concerned. The finding and the obligation to take remedial action shall be notified to the beneficiary. 4. The imposition of an administrative penalty shall not affect the legality and regularity of the payments to which it applies.