SECTION 96

(1) Any contract awarded by a public corporation may be used as security, subject to any form of transfer of claim. (2) In this case, the security shall be in the form of a bilateral contract between the public corporation’s contracting partner and a third party called “secured creditor”. (3) The secured creditor shall notify in writing or shall serve the Contracting Authority or the accounting officer in charge of payment with a certified true copy of the original security document. (4) From the date of notification or service referred to in (3) above, and except for where payments are not possible, the accounting officer in charge of payment shall pay directly to the secured creditor the amount of the claim or the part thereof given to the said creditor as security. (5) Where the security is put up to the benefit of several creditors, each of them shall receive the percentage of the claim assigned to them in the document, the indications of which shall be notified or served to the accounting officer in charge of payment. (6) No modification in the designation of the accounting officer in charge of payment, or in the terms and conditions of payment, except, in the latter case, with the written approval of the secured creditor, shall be made after notification or service of the security. (7) The release order for the notifications or service of the security shall be given in writing by the secured creditor to the accounting officer in charge of payment, which creditor should be the holder of the security document provided for in (3) above. It shall expire as from the second working day following that of reception by the accounting officer in charge of payment of the document informing the said accountant accordingly. (8) Only preferential claims provided for by laws or regulations in force shall take precedence over the rights of secured or subrogated creditors. VIII. Amounts of Public Contracts VIII.1. Characteristics of Amount