Facts Report of the REACH Enforcement Project

In a ‘Facts Report of the REACH-EN-FORCE-1 project’ ECHA has published a status report on enforcement of the regulation throughout the EU member countries, Norway, and Iceland. However, three EU member countries did not participate in the project: Lithuania, Luxemburg, and Italy. As has been largely disputed, the number of controls of companies per countries varies broadly: France e.g. completed 14 controls, Germany 257, although the number of companies concerned by REACH will not differ that much. In roughly one fourth of the 1.589 companies checked, the authorities discovered cases of non-compliance. Infringements, however, vary on a broad range, so that in only three cases litigation in form of criminal cases ensued.

More than half of the companies inspected play a role as a manufacturer, whereas the others were importers, downstream users or Only representatives. Some of the companies assumed more than one of these qualities. The most common case of non-compliance was missing or insufficient synchronisation of safety data sheets with the demands of the REACH regulation. With enforcement speeding up and in several countries to start at all, inspection results will receive more and more attention as the deadline December 1, 2010, for high volume substances is coming closer.