Board of Appeal's press release: Board of Appeal's latest decision considers ECHA's use of languages in communicating with a registrant

BoA/PR/14/03

Case A-002-2013 concerned an SME verification process and the subsequent revocation of a registration.

Helsinki, 23 May 2014 – The Board of Appeal has published a decision regarding an appeal against the revocation of a registration following the non-payment of an additional registration fee after ECHA had conducted a verification of the enterprise size of the registrant. The additional registration fee was required as ECHA found that the company was not entitled to the reduced registration fee for small- and medium size enterprises (SME).

The Appellant, a company based in France, claimed, amongst other things, that ECHA had breached the principle of sound administration by not using the French language during the procedure leading to the adoption of the decision revoking the registration.

The Board of Appeal decision found that ECHA, in the circumstances of this case, incorrectly applied the EU language rules applicable to the Agency. The Board of Appeal decision also found that the SME verification process, through which ECHA checks that a registrant paid the appropriate registration fee for their size of enterprise, should be seen as a part of the completeness check of a registration.

The Board of Appeal annulled the contested decision and, amongst other things, ordered ECHA to repeat the administrative process related to the verification of the enterprise size in accordance with the language rules that apply to ECHA.