As a non-EU company, why should I care?

Here’s why: Even though you might be established in a non-EU country, at least some of your business partners (or your business partners’ partners) may be based in the European Union. Therefore, while implementation of REACH may be out of your direct line of sight, you still need to pay attention to the details of this regulation because someone downstream in your sales chain might be affected, which would impact you directly.

The major points you should know about REACH

• From December 1^st 2008 onwards, no EU market access will be possible for phase-in substances, manufactured or imported, >1 metric tonne/year, unless the substance is exempted from REACH registration obligation, or was pre-registered between June 1^st and December 1^st 2008, and will be registered before the final registration deadline.
• Registration is for substances, NOT products, as a product may contain more than one substance, and all of its substances would need registration.
• Non-EU companies are not allowed to register substances, but they can appoint an Only Representative in the EU to do the pre-registration/registration.
• If a non-EU company exports substances, either as such or contained in preparations or in articles¹, to the EU, the importing European partner has the obligation to register these substances. The importing EU partner is only released from his registration obligation if an Only Representative has been appointed and the appointing non-EU company has informed his importing EU customer(s) accordingly.
• Even if Dow has stated in its web tool REACH information on Dow products that a substance was pre-registered / is going to be registered by its legal entity(ies) in the EU, this only covers substances manufactured by Dow in the EU or imported by Dow into the EU. The latest interpretation of the Only Representative under REACH (June 8, 2008) suggests that substances produced by Dow outside of the EU and indirectly exported to the EU by our non-EU customers (e.g. as part of a formulation) may be covered as well by an Only Representative, if assigned to cover Dow imports. In order to accommodate for this method, Dow recently introduced the Dow Only Representative Trustee service.

¹In articles only if the substance in the article is intended to be released.

Got it? Test yourself!

If Dow has stated on its industry-leading web tool “REACH Information on Dow Products” that the “product is in compliance with REACH” and that “we will continue to market it after December 1, 2008” (meaning that the pre-registration obligations for the REACH relevant substances in the product are fulfilled, does that automatically mean that, as a non-EU Dow customer, I may export this Dow product/substance to the EU?

ANSWER: Unfortunately not! Why? Because these specific imports are/may not be covered by the pre-registration and registration application.