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1. Where a Member State's competent authorities become aware of operations which constitute, or appear to constitute, breaches of customs or agricultural legislation that are of particular relevance at Community level, and especially:

— when they have, or might have, ramifications in other Member States or in third countries, or — where it appears likely to the above authorities that similar operations have also been carried out in other Member States, they shall communicate to the Commission as soon as possible, either on their own initiative or in response to a reasoned request from the Commission, any relevant information, be it in the form of documents or copies or extracts thereof, needed to determine the facts so that the Commission may coordinate the steps taken by the Member States. The Commission shall convey this information to the competent authorities of the other Member States.

Within six months of the receipt of the information conveyed by the Commission, the competent authorities of the Member States shall forward to the Commission a summary of the anti-fraud measures taken by them on the basis of that information. The Commission shall, on the basis of those summaries, regularly prepare and convey to the Member States reports on the results of measures taken by the Member States.

2. Where a Member State's competent authorities invoke paragraph 1, they need not communicate information as provided in Articles 14 (b) and 15 to the competent authorities of the other member States concerned.

3. In response to a reasoned request from the Commission, the Member State's competent authorities shall act in the manner laid down in Articles 4 to 8.

4. Where the Commission considers that irregularities have taken place in one or more Member States, it shall inform the Member State or States concerned thereof and that State or those States shall at the earliest opportunity carry out an enquiry, at which Commission officials may be present under the conditions laid down in Articles 9 (2) and 11 of this Regulation.

The Member State or States concerned shall, as soon as possible, communicate to the Commission the findings of the enquiry.

5. Officials of the Commission may collect the information specified in Article 10 under conditions laid down in that Article by common accord.

6. This Article is without prejudice to the Commission's right to information and scrutiny by virtue of other legislation in force.

7. Without prejudice to the provisions of the Community Customs Code relating to the establishment of a common framework for risk management, the data exchanged between the Commission and the Member States pursuant to Articles 17 and 18 may be stored and used for the purpose of strategic and operational analysis.

8. The Member States and the Commission may exchange the results of operational and strategic analyses carried out under this Regulation.