REACH and Competition Law React
April 20, 2009
The Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances Regulation (REACH) requires substances manufactured or sold in the European Union to be registered with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Registration requires the development of detailed dossiers for each substance. The REACH Regulation seeks to reduce the registration burden by requiring that companies registering a particular substance, including direct competitors, collaborate in the development of the data required for registration. REACH-mandated collaboration is obligatory throughout the registration process. REACH requires companies (in all but limited circumstances) to share data and jointly submit a technical dossier for the same substance. Companies are also obliged to participate in a Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF), a virtual data sharing platform existing in ECHA’s IT system. In addition to participating in a SIEF, many companies have organised themselves into private, voluntary consortia in which they collaborate to generate the necessary data to satisfy their REACH obligations.
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