EU claims more transparency for collecting societies

In a proposal which has been published by the European Commission on 11 July 2012, the EU is going amongst others to force collecting societies to more transparency including the reform of basic standards which must be followed by all European collecting societies. To have a look at the plans of the Commission please follow this link: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/management/com-2012-3722_en.pdf

K&L at Chemspec 2012

Our Managing Director, Mr. Hans-Jochen Lückefett has opened the session at Chemspec 2012 in Barcelona. He presented: “Tricks and Traps when working in SIEFs”.

He started with explaining the meaning of the SIEF (the substance information exchange forum) and how it works.

Then he pointed out that the concept of the SIEF is based on conflicting principles:

•  Mandatory membership versus voluntary roles such as the SIEF
….facilitator
•  Cooperation and sharing of data versus full application of the
….EU competition law
•  Sharing of data versus protection of confidential company data.

Based on the description of typical situations he explained how to avoid the typical mistakes and how to escape from traps while complying with the REACH regulation.

Revised German energy consumption labelling legislation entered into force

The revised German “Energieverbrauchskennzeichnungsgesetz” (energy consumption labelling legislation) has recently entered into force. The new law transposes the European Energy Labelling Directive of May 19, 2010.

The new law aims at expanding its scope. Apart from household appliances, industrial and commercial products will be also included in the future. Furthermore, the law foresees additional energy efficiency classes A+, A++ and A+++ on top of the existing class A. The labelling scale contains further energy efficiency classes from A to G, with the aim to reduce the classes step by step from A to D by increasing energy efficiency of products.

Besides products requirements, the revised energy consumption labelling legislation improves market surveillance due to added enforcement obligations and rights on a regional level.

ECHA will publish information about NONS

As published on May31, 2012, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) will input the information about NONS (notification of new substances) in the registration database.

NONS are those substances who have been registered under the former Chemicals legislation 67/548/EEC and are regarded as registered substances under REACH.

Why is it important to have access to the data of those substances, too?
In case of e.g. Recycling of substances as such or in mixtures, registration obligations do not apply if the substance has the same identity as the substance that has already been registered. In order to check and identify their obligations, recyclers need to know if the substance is registered and need access to safety data details.

The publication of the dossiers will take place in 3 steps and will last until 2013. Further information can be found here:
http://echa.europa.eu/de/information-on-chemicals/registered-substances

German NGO provides a gateway for REACH article 33 enquiries

In cooperation with the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA) the NGO BUND (federation for environment and nature conservation) has setup an online gateway for enquiries regarding REACH article 33. Consumers can request for information about products by indication of the EAN code and suggests that the product have already been bought.

REACH Article 33.2 says that, on their request, consumers have to be informed about so called candidate substances in articles > 0,1 mass% within 45 days and cost-free. This obligation applies whether the product has been bought already or not and can also be used as purchase decision.

Whilst the websites of the UBA do contain all relevant information about the information that can be requested and on which types of products the requirements apply, the information provided by the BUND may be misleading for people who are not familiar with the REACH regulation and may raise false expectations.

The BUND says: „Within 45 days the supplier of the product has to inform you which chemicals are contained in the product.“

Besides the fact, that „chemical“ does not mean a dangerous or toxic substance in general, only information about substances of the candidate list that are contained in concentrations > 0,1 mass% have to be indicated. As the current list contains 73 substances and is slowly growing, there are still many substances that are not subject to information requirements.

In addition, it is not clear, if UBA and BUND expect to receive information according to the dissenting opinion from German authorities who say: once an article, always an article.

8 new registries of intentions for SVHC (substances of very high concern)

Recently, ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency has published another registry of intentions for 8 substances.

After the submission of Annex XV dossiers, stakeholders will be invited to comment the dossiers. In case no comments will be submitted, the substances will automatically be put on the candidate list.

The submission of the Annex XV dossiers is expected for the beginning of August.

Further information can be found on: http://echa.europa.eu/registry-of-current-svhc-intentions

DMF officially included into annex XVII REACH regulation

After being restricted for use in articles in the European Union as a pesticide, DMF was prohibited in articles in general via the decision 2009/175 in 2009 and later on the decision was extended until March 15, 2013.

Last week, May 16, 2012, the restriction of DMF (Dimethylfumarate), CAS No 624-49-7 has now officially been included into the REACH regulation.

The substance is not allowed to be used in articles or any parts thereof in concentrations greater than 0,1 mg/kg. Articles that exceed this concentration are not allowed to be placed on the European market. This restriction also bans articles that are imported into the EU from outside the community.

DMF, in a concentration greater than 0,1 mg/kg poses a risk to human health. As several products like furniture or footwear had been available on the market, consumers in Finland, France Poland, Sweden and UK were damaged.

The inclusion of DMF into annex XVII will come into force on June 8, 2012.

RoHS FAQs

The new, additional requirements of the RoHS recast, directive 2011/65/EU is a huge challenge for all manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).

In a cooperation project by several member states, a FAQ –document is currently drafted in order to support industry with the implementation. The FAQ will answer many questions on interpretation of the legislative text of the directive; its official publication is expected for middle of June 2012.

The FAQs will not be legally binding, and it is highly recommended, to supervise the national implementations in the different member states, too.

The implementation of the national RoHS legislation has started and some member states have already published the new legislation. From January 3, 2013, the national RoHS-1 legislation will then be displaced by the legislation of the RoHS recast.

From that date, EEE that is put on the market has to proof compliance with RoHS by carrying the CE marking and the EU declaration of conformity. For several product categories or products, exemptions and / or transition periods apply.

New REACH En-Force 3 is waiting in the wings

The joint projects of the market surveillance for REACH and CLP regulation, REACH-En-force 1 and 2 have already passed.

As the focus of REACH En-force 1 was the creation of awareness for this new legislation, only few offences have been reported by member states. The second project focused on so called Downstream Users and the new REACH Safety Data Sheet. Many gaps were detected, mostly in Safety Data Sheets and within the communication in the supply chain. Whilst the results of the En-force 2 project are expected for autumn this year, the next En-Force project is already waiting in the wings.

REACH En-force 3 will focus on substances and mixtures that will be exported to the European Union. Therefore, a pilot project in cooperation with the customs is carried out in south Germany (Baden-Württemberg).

First results of the pilot project show that some importers of substances rely on information about their substances being registered by a so called Only Representative without even having any further contact details or registration numbers.

In other cases, the purchase department is not aware about the registration obligations that may arise from purchasing outside the European Union.

If you are importer of substances, be sure on the compliance of the substances you are importing. K&L helps you in demanding information that you should be able to present when authorities are knocking on your door.

Check your Copyright levy invoices

After cumulation of a large number of highly deficient invoices of collecting societies in several countries in the last year as well as for the first months of 2012, many invoices are to be rejected. Therefore K&L recommends to clients and companies who manage reporting and payments on their own to compare and check the reported sales figures, applicable tariffs and categorization of their products with the data of the invoices of the collecting societies. K&L has received numerous and sometimes completely incorrect invoices of collecting societies for reporting of sales figures for 2011 and 2012. The societies are still struggling with a clear statement or comment on that.

All this is based on the meanwhile established and very complex regulations in all countries: There are, for example, for “any kind of integrated or removable storage device”, i. e. memory cards in Austria 30 different tariffs within 4 different tariff ranges, depending on the contract situation of the company, use, storage capacity etc. The appropriate tariffing for some reprography devices depend on up to nine characteristics! It requires a lot of knowledge in the field to classify each single device correctly. That means, on the one hand the correct categorization of the products and equipment, and the correct application of tariffs on the other hand. However, also tax rates, discounts, deadlines and special applications, like exports, have to be considered. These evaluations might be very elaborate, especially when detailed obligations, including tariffs, contracts, forms and further information are not instantly available.