The European Chemicals Agency announced plans to revise by June of this year a key provision of its guidance on how to register substances in accordance with REACH. The agency noted that it is in the process of revising the guidance for representatives of chemical manufacturers located outside the European Union, known as "Only Representatives."
One of the issues that the chemicals agency is attempting to resolve is whether or not the Only Representatives would be required to accumulate volumes of multiple chemical manufacturers that make the same chemical in order to register. If the revised guidance states that an Only Representative does not have to aggregate the volume of the same chemical that is made by different non-European manufacturers, companies may have more time to register and may not have to provide as much information on those chemicals. However, the implications of this change could have significant impacts on the fragrance industry in that customer companies may push their fragrance suppliers to agree to become Only Representatives for them. There are many legal requirements, costs and risks associated with becoming an Only Representative. The European Chemicals Agency is expected to publish the revised guidance in early June 2008 which will provide greater details on the Only Representative's obligations. (Source: FMA, FEMA)
