The European Union (EU) Market Surveillance Regulation can be the competitive advantage you need, or the author of your product’s downfall. The choice is yours — and it comes down to your supply chain data technology.
At any time, there is an inestimable number of articles placed on the EU market that fail to meet the requirements under legislation such as the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation. However, because there is little communication and coordination between EU member state authorities, enforcement can be inconsistent. This is changing.
Formally passed as Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 on market surveillance and compliance of products and amending Directive 2004/42/EC and Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and (EU) No 305/2011), this new law brings market surveillance, customs, and regulatory enforcement authorities from each member state together in a single data-sharing environment to manage a wide range of product legislation. This enhances their ability to focus on non-compliant articles being placed on the EU market.
The legislation encompasses 70 different regulations and directives that establish requirements for accessing the EU market. The list includes the REACH Regulation, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, and the Medical Device Regulation.
Learn about the new EU Market Surveillance Regulation and how it impacts your company in our whitepaper, The EU Market Surveillance Regulation & the New Enforcement Landscape.
What EU Market Surveillance Changes for REACH Enforcement
Although the market access requirements identified by the legislation are uniform across the EU, enforcement action has been carried out primarily by the member state where the non-compliant articles have first been sold or distributed. This has led to some inconsistent results and priorities. Enforcement, market surveillance, and customs agencies didn’t have a streamlined means of sharing information across the different regulations, although limited joint enforcement efforts have been undertaken.
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has led some initiatives on specific legislation, such as the REACH Regulation and the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation, but they have lacked an effective means of sharing compliance data about broader requirements between the member states.
The Market Surveillance Regulation introduces new processes, tools, and training resources for improved collaboration and action between the various groups of authorities that have responsibility for market surveillance. These include stringent new powers, such as the ability to:
- Enforce remediation actions to bring products into a state of compliance.
- Centralize enforcement data in the Union Product Compliance Network (UPCN).
- Determine the context for placement and warning labeling on online websites.
- Recover costs for identification of risks and monitoring of actions from companies in breach of the rules.
The new legislation will provide the framework for enforcement agencies to leverage the same process efficiencies that supply chain data management users have been enjoying for years — a centralized means of accessing all compliance data in one place. The UPCN will have access to the new Substances of Concern In articles, as such or in complex objects (Products) (SCIP) database, giving enforcement bodies additional opportunity to verify compliance data and identify high-risk articles.
Learn about the new EU Market Surveillance Regulation and how it impacts your company in our knowledge article on The EU Market Surveillance Regulation.
What This Means for Your Company
It would be easy to say the EU Market Surveillance Regulation simply increases the likelihood of enforcement for non-compliant articles on the market. However, the regulation’s impact can be defined even further through one moment of reflection: Are you leveraging supply chain data management technology, such as the Assent Compliance Platform?
If you aren’t, you might have a whole lot of regulatory expertise to build, data to collect, and declarations to validate. You would probably need to find new technical expertise to manage your SCIP dossiers. But if you are an Assent client, you aren’t worried about any of this, because you have:
- An understanding of which market access requirements you must meet.
- A centralized platform for managing all product composition data from the supply chain.
- Fast and easy reporting to meet the scrutiny of border control and market surveillance authorities.
- A solution for producing SCIP dossier submissions.
- Software modules that reliably scale with substances list updates.
If you’re an Assent client, sit back and watch your SCIP database submissions direct enforcement toward competitors who ignore the rules and may not have invested in compliance data management or processes.
As the leading supply chain data technology provider, we know the biggest enterprises with the broadest supply chains have every intention of submitting their article data to the SCIP database in time for the January 5, 2021, deadline. Because enforcement officials from any member state will have access to the SCIP database, they can quickly determine which companies in your industry and product groupings are at the highest risk of non-compliance.
And when enforcement agencies look at any of your competitors, they’ll do so with the full might of a system that assigns all enforcement resources to one defined priority — keeping non-compliant articles off the streamlined EU Single Market.
Your SCIP Submission Works Proactively With REACH Enforcement
The Assent Compliance Platform provides companies with a solution that manages the supply chain data requirements of any EU market access regulation.
The platform can acquire the article data you need, build IUCLID-formatted product dossiers, and sync these with the SCIP database, so enforcement authorities may look elsewhere when they evaluate your industry. To learn more, contact our experts.
