Vera Lebedeva: A New Team Member

Vera Lebedeva joined 1cc in January 2018 as a Consultant/Compliance Specialist with focus on REACH, RoHS and Conflict Minerals. Vera completed her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Political Science at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), where she additionally learned German. In the course of studies, Vera Lebedeva spent an exchange semester in Tuebingen/Germany. After attaining her degree in Moscow, Vera decided to resume her academic career in Tuebingen, where she graduated with a Master’s degree in Political Science.

Germany Introduced Revised Copyright Law

On March 1, 2018, the new German Law on the alignment of copyright with the current requirements of the Knowledge Society (Gesetz zur Angleichung des Urheberrechts an die aktuellen Erfordernisse der Wissensgesellschaft, UrhWissG) came into force. After careful scrutiny, it became clear that the legal provisions are relevant to the compliance efforts of IT/CE manufacturers: In short, the law broadens the scope of rights to private copying, which is remunerated via copyright levies.

The UrhWissG specifies the acts of copyright use in the field of education and science that are permitted without requiring the consent of authors and other right holders. This leads to the assumption that copyright fees may increase. However, there are no new or higher claims, or planned tariff adjustments other than the ones known by collecting societies.

Nonetheless, the notion of higher levy claims could be adopted in the current negotiations on products by collecting societies. Negotiations are underway in Germany on copyright levies for hard disks, among other things, and the claims might go up to 34 Euro per unit.

1cc will continue to monitor developments.

Conflict Minerals: New Regulatory Proposal in the U.S.

Many public companies in the U.S. are presently subject to disclosure requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The disclosure requirements relate to the use of conflict minerals originating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country. The new regulatory motion calls for the repeal of those obligations:

According to Bill H.R. 4248, section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is to be deleted entirely. The respective legal proposal was referred to the Committee for Financial Services in November 2017, which presented its report to the House of Representatives in February 2018. A final decision or legislation is pending.

ECHA Published New Candidate List

The European Chemical Agency (ECHA) has published an update of the Candidate List under REACH on January 15, 2018: Seven new substances of very high concern (SVHC) were added to the list. For Bisphenol-A, the already existing entry was updated.
The Candidate List of SVHCs for authorization now contains 181 substances.

Link to ECHA´s Website: https://echa.europa.eu/de/candidate-list-table

Eurasian Economic Union RoHS will come into force on March 1, 2018: Are you compliant with its requirements?

The Technical Regulation of Eurasian Economic Union (former Customs Union) TR EEU 037/2016 „On restriction of use of hazardous substances in electric and radio-electronic equipment“ will enter into force on March 1, 2018: Its substance restrictions apply to Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) with identical thresholds as in the EU. The product scope and the list of exceptions are very similar but not identical with EU RoHS requirements.

The most important differences, however, can be stated on the level of personal scope, of conformity assessment and of marking and labelling. Before a product can be placed on EEU market, it has to undergo a specific conformity assessment procedure including registration and receive a EEU conformity mark. This procedure can be initiated by producer, importer or their authorized representative subject to special requirements.

You need further assistance regarding compliance with EEU TR on RoHS? Please contact us at contact@1cc-consulting.com

ECHA Published New Candidate List

The European Chemical Agency (ECHA) has published an update of the Candidate List under REACH on January 15, 2018: Seven new substances of very high concern (SVHC) were added to the list. For Bisphenol-A, the already existing entry was updated.
The Candidate List of SVHCs for authorization now contains 181 substances.

Link to ECHA´s Website: https://echa.europa.eu/de/candidate-list-table