REACH En-Force Project 3 focuses on imports in cooperation with the customs

The third REACH En-Force Project, initiated on a European basis, has now been implemented in several EU member states. This time, the national authorities focus on imports from outside the European Union. Apart from the control if companies have fulfilled their registration or pre-registration duties, the CLP notification is one issue that authority’s’ representatives deal with.

First experience from the market surveillance shows, that many importers are still not aware of this specific requirement at all.
Importing companies whose registration obligations will be handled by an Only Representative (OR) until 2018 (based on tonnages < 100 tons/year have to either mandate the OR for this notification or submit the information themselves. Based on the legal text, the OR is not mentioned in the CLP regulation. Therefore, it’s the importers responsibility to ensure the information is submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in time. If the information has been submitted to ECHA as part of a registration, no additional notification has to be made. For breaches of the requirements of the CLP regulation, member states had to introduce penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive. In Germany, e.g. the draft for the new Chemicals Sanctions regulation, defines an administrative fee in case that the notification has not been submitted at all, not in time, incorrect or incomplete. An administrative fee up to € 50.000 could be charged.