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.

End of deadline for late pre-registration is approaching

Many companies that manufacture or import Phase-in substances that are manufactured or imported in the European Union in tonnages from 100 – 1000 tons per year have a registration deadline until June 1, 2013 if they had submitted a pre-registration until December 1, 2008.

But also companies that started manufacture or import after that date may have the possibility for late-pre-registration and will be able to benefit from the extended registration deadline, too.

A late pre-registration is possible if it is submitted latest 6 months after exceeding the 1 ton/a margin and at least 12 months before the end of the extended registration deadline mentioned in article 23 REACH regulation.

For phase-in substances that are subject to the registration deadline June 1, 2013 that means that there are only 4 weeks left to go for late-pre-registration.

Companies that have started manufacture or import of a phase-in substance recently or are planning to start should check if they still have the possibility for submitting the late-pre-registration to ECHA (European Chemicals Agency).

Evaluation of Ecodesign Directive: Extension of product scope not recommended

The effectiveness of the ErP Directive and its Implementing Measures has been assessed by an evaluation project of the European Commission. Not later than 2012, according to Article 21 of the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC, the Commission is required to do a review.

Among other things, the evaluation addressed the question whether the product scope of the Directive could be extended to cover non energy-related products as well. According to the final report, the analysis does not support a decision for the extension of the Directive at this stage. Prior to any possible extension, significant progress should be made in relation to the implementation of the existing Ecodesign Directive in order to cover the energy-related products already identified.

The final report also pointed out that voluntary initiatives aiming for the adoption of eco-design practices and the development of the ecological profile of products should be promoted even prior to an extension.

Many changes in European Copyright Levy legislation

There have been more than altogether 1.000 changes in Copyright Levy legislations in Europe within one year, from 2010 to 2011. The number stands only for tariff amendments and/or new tariffs charged on the manufacture, import and/or sale of devices and media which can be used to reproduce and/or store third party protected works, as well as the reproduction of music or written material. This is one of the results of an empirical survey K&L conducted for the European Copyright Levy provisions.

This remarkable number of changes is due to the fact that EU as well as non-EU countries with a copyright levy system in place are constantly negotiating their copyright legislation, the tariff amounts, the material scope etc. This is an ongoing process, continuously monitored by K&L. There is a dynamic development of copyright legislations in all European countries including the candidate countries acceding the EU, with payment changes for many IT products, storage media and consumer electronics as well as modifications in formal requirements and legal basis. Different amounts are being claimed for different product categories. According to the technological progress, again and again new products qualify for being levied. The most disputed levies are at present Tablets, Mobile Phones, Settop Boxes and/or Hard Disks – depending on the already existing legislation in a country. This means that, again, in a year from now we will see probably even more changes. One more reasons to keep a close look on the development there.

REACH turns out to be an export hit!

The REACH regulation is going to spread over the globe! After countries like China, Korea and Turkey has implemented a chemical legislation, based on the contents of the European REACH regulation, India is going to follow.

The ministry of chemicals and fertilizers, the department of chemicals and petrochemicals has recently called for a new, REACH-like legislation: http://chemicals.nic.in/DNCP_2012.pdf

The vision for Indian chemical industry is:

•    To facilitate the growth and development of the chemical industry in an environmental friendly manner; with focus on innovation to meet local needs, sustainability, and “green technologies & processes”; so as to enable it to become a globally competitive major-player

It remains to be seen whether the Indian legislation will go straight with the contents of EU REACH like Registration Evaluation and Authorisation or if they will just pick out some of the main objectives.

RoHS Recast – differences in transition periods

The new RoHS directive 2011/65/EU has different transition periods for products that are new in the scope.

Products of the categories 8 or 9, medical devices and measuring and control instruments have to comply with the substance restrictions of article 4 and the corresponding obligations like CE marking when being placed on the market after a certain date, e.g. July 22, 2014 for medical devices.

Other EEE (electrical and electronic equipment) that has not been in the scope of RoHS I (2022/95/EC) is allowed to be available on the market until July 22, 2019. EEE in the new category 11 or products that are in the scope of RoHS due to changes of definitions can benefit from this transition period.

But there is a big difference between those two types of transition periods:

The difference is between the wording “placed on the market” and “being available on the market”. That means, that EEE which is benefitting of the transition period until 2019, have to be off the market then, even if they have been placed on the market before that date.

Any link in a supply chain has to take supervise for his business that no non-compliant products remain when approaching the end of the transition period.

Successful business trips to Asia and America

An increasing number of customers are requesting Legal Tracking Services for Asia and Latin America. Reason enough for Hans-Jochen Lückefett and Michael Krug (Managing Directors of K&L) to take off for two business trips to America as well as to Asia.

Together with Armin Kienle (Managing Director of 1WEEE Services) Hans-Jochen Lückefett visited several Asian countries, among them China. Beside interesting meetings, the two companies agreed with the Second Polytechnic University of Shanghai to establish a subject “compliance” in the curriculum of the alma mater. The mother company of 1WEEE, TechProtect, has been cooperating since a couple of years with the University in the area of recycling. The University has agreed to help both companies to establish their services in Asia. The local presence is guaranteed by two offices of the company group in Shanghai and Singapore. The company group’s office in Latin America is situated in Mexico.

After fruitful business meetings in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Michael Krug journeyed onwards to Las Vegas in the US, in order to participate in the conference of the Reverse Logistics Association. In his presentation, he focused on the question how manufacturers and retailers could handle the growing complexity of legislation in the area of waste and product related environmental protection. A panel discussion after the presentation, moderated by Michael Krug, was of great interest for the audience. Representatives of Hewlett-Packard, Philips and Walmart explained how their companies proceed on the way to global compliance. Conclusion: None of the companies researches all necessary data or undertakes all necessary steps on its own. There is still a high demand for professional service providers.

First draft of Elektro- und Elektronikgeräte-Stoff-Verordnung, ElektroStoffV (Implementation of RoHS recast in Germany) published on February 21, 2012

The implementation of the new RoHS directive 2011/65/EU into national legislation will be separated from the WEEE directive.

The ElektroG combined the implementation of the RoHS and the WEEE directive. Due to extended obligations, a different product scope and dates of publication, those two directives will now be separated.

According to the directive 2011/65/EU, the implementation into national legislation has to take place until January 2, 2013.

ECHA launches Classification and Labelling (C&L) inventory of Chemicals!

After postponing the publication several times, today February 13, 2012, ECHA publishes the C&L inventory of Chemicals that are present on the European market.

The database allows any person to retrieve information about the classification of chemicals quite easily. All substances that are manufactured in or imported to the European Union > 1 ton/year per company or all substances that are classified as dangerous are listed in this database.

Information about hazard potential of a substance and applying hazard pictograms can be gathered when requesting the database.

http://echa.europa.eu/de/information-on-chemicals/cl-inventory-database

Different classifications for one substance may occur as many substances were notified in the inventory before all REACH registrations and therefore necessary studies were performed. During the next years and the upcoming registration periods, the classification should become more and more harmonized.

Phthalate decrease on the European market

One aim of the European Chemicals Legislation REACH is, to collect information about chemicals on the European market, wheather as substances itself or in mixtures or articles. Besides the evaluation of new hazard potential of chemicals, also chemicals, known to be dangerous for humans and the environment shall be reduced or banned from the market.

As Phthalates (plasticicers) are known to have serious impacts and are toxic for reproduction, some of them are already restricted to be used in toys and childcare articles in a concentration > 0,1 mass%. (REACH Annex XVII)

But on a quite regular basis, non-compliant toys, mostly imported from Asia, are detected by national authorities. Toys with phatalates in a concentration > 30 % are found. Using the RAPEX (The Rapid Alert System for Non-Food Products), European memberstates cooperate and inform each other about those products and the measures that were taken in order to solve the situation. The information of the RAPEX is open to consumers:

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/dyna/rapex/rapex_archives_en.cfm

Besides toys and childcare articles, also other products shall be restricted by the REACH regulation. A current consultation evaluates the restriction of Phatales in any article intended for use indoors and articles that may come into direct contact with the skin or mucous membranes.

http://echa.europa.eu/de/restrictions-under-consideration

Comments can be submitted by stakeholders until March 16, 2012.