9. Force majeure

In some cases, non-com­pli­ance with the terms and con­di­tions of an im­port or ex­port li­cence may be due to force ma­jeure. In or­der for force ma­jeure to be recog­nised, the tit­u­lar holder or trans­feree must present to MAVI a re­quest plead­ing force ma­jeure. If the tit­u­lar holder is seek­ing an ex­ten­sion to the pe­riod of va­lid­ity of the li­cence, such a re­quest must be pre­sented within 30 cal­en­dar days of the ex­piry of the li­cence and of MAVI in­form­ing the op­er­a­tor that the li­cence obli­ga­tion in ques­tion has not been ful­filled.

In ad­di­tion to the re­quest, the tit­u­lar holder or trans­feree must present proof of the cir­cum­stances that they con­sider to con­sti­tute force ma­jeure. The proof must be pre­sented within 181 cal­en­dar days of the ex­piry of the pe­riod within which the obli­ga­tion was to be com­pletely ful­filled. If it has not been pos­si­ble to present such proof within this pe­riod de­spite the op­er­a­tor’s best ef­forts to ob­tain them and present them, MAVI may grant an ex­ten­sion to the dead­line.

MAVI may recog­nise force ma­jeure for a li­cence or ex­tract that it has is­sued and de­cide to:

• ei­ther can­cel the obli­ga­tion to have the prod­ucts and quan­tity in­di­cated on the li­cence be re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion or ex­ported dur­ing the pe­riod of va­lid­ity of the li­cence and re­lease the se­cu­rity, or ex­tend the pe­riod of va­lid­ity of the li­cence by a pe­riod of max­i­mum 180 days fol­low­ing the ex­piry of the orig­i­nal pe­riod of va­lid­ity of the li­cence, tak­ing ac­count of the cir­cum­stances of the case; this only ap­plies to that por­tion of the quan­tity in ques­tion that could not be re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion or ex­ported be­cause of the force ma­jeure,

• or ex­tend the pe­riod for the sub­mis­sion of the proof of re­lease for free cir­cu­la­tion or ex­port by a pe­riod of max­i­mum 730 cal­en­dar days with­out par­tial for­fei­ture of the se­cu­rity.

The tit­u­lar holder or trans­feree may (pend­ing a de­ci­sion on force ma­jeure) re­quest the right to use the li­cence with re­spect to the bal­ance of the quan­tity spec­i­fied thereon con­cern­ing which the op­er­a­tor has not pleaded force ma­jeure. MAVI may then is­sue an ex­tract for such bal­ance of the quan­tity. Such an ex­tract is not trans­fer­able