Without prejudice to the prerogative of the contracting authority, if necessary, the  European Union may as donor proceed itself to the recovery by any means.  26.11. If the contract is terminated for any reason whatsoever, the guarantee securing the pre- financing may be invoked forthwith in order to repay the balance of the pre-financing still  owed by the contractor, and the guarantor shall not delay payment or raise objection for  any reason whatever.  26.12. Prior to, or instead of, terminating the contract as provided for in Article 36, the  contracting authority may suspend payments as a precautionary measure without prior  notice. 26.13. Where the award procedure or the performance of the contract proves to have been  subject to breach of obligations, irregularities or fraud attributable to the contractor, the  contracting authority may in addition to the possibility to suspend the performance of the  contract in accordance with Article 23.2 and to terminate the contract as provided for in  Article 36, suspend payments and/or recover amounts already paid, in proportion to the  seriousness of the breach of obligations, irregularities or fraud. In addition to measures  referred above, the contracting authority may reduce the contract value in proportion to  the seriousness of the irregularities, fraud or of the breach of obligations, including where  the activities concerned were not implemented or were implemented poorly, partially or  late.  27.1. Orders for payments to third parties may be carried out only after an assignment made in  accordance with Article 5. The assignment shall be notified to the contracting authority.  27.2. Notification of beneficiaries of the assignment shall be the sole responsibility of the  contractor.  27.3. In the event of a legally binding attachment of the property of the contractor affecting  payments due to him under the contract, and without prejudice to the time limit laid down  in Article 26, the contracting authority shall have 30 days, starting from the day on which  it receives notification of the definitive lifting of the obstacle to payment, to resume  payments to the contractor.  28.1. The contracting authority shall pay the contractor sums due in accordance with Article  26.3.  28.2. Once the time-limit referred to in Article 26.3 has expired, the contractor – unless the  contractor is a government department or public body in European Union Member State-  shall, within two months of receipt of the late payment, receive default interest:  -  at the rediscount rate applied by the central bank of the partner country if payments are  in the currency of that country ;  -  at the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its main refinancing transactions  in euro, as published in the Official Journal of the European Union, C series, if  payments are in euro,  on the first day of the month in which the time-limit expired, plus eight percentage points.  The interest shall be payable for the time elapsed between the expiry of the payment  August 2020 c4e_annexigc_en  Page 23 of 36  Article 28 -  Delayed payments  Article 27 -  Payment to third parties 