EU-based company

If your company is based in an EU or EEA country, EU legislation and obligations will continue to apply to you. However, your business partners in the UK will need to adjust their operations to follow the new UK chemicals legislation.

If you purchased a chemical substance from a UK-based company that registered a substance under REACH, you can no longer rely on the substance being legally registered.

For the substance to remain legally registered, the UK-based manufacturer from which you bought the chemical should have appointed an only representative established in one of the EU or EEA countries or transferred their registration. Alternatively, you should register the substance yourself as an importer.

If your company purchases a mixture from a UK-based supplier to be placed on the EU market, you will become an importer of that mixture into the EU. You will have to fulfil all the CLP obligations for that mixture. This applies even if you do not change the composition of the mixture.

If your UK-based supplier is currently an importer of the chemical from outside the EU/EEA, they have the option of moving their importing activity to the EU or EEA. Otherwise, you will need to register the substance as the EU-importer.

C&L notifications

If you plan to import substances from a UK-based company into the EU, it is you, not the UK-based company, who will have to submit the C&L notifications to ECHA. A C&L notification must also be submitted for substances in mixtures, when the concentration of the substance triggers the classification of the mixture. A separate C&L notification is not needed when you have registered the substance. Any mixture that you import will need to comply with the CLP Regulation (see Q&A 1540).

Poison centre notifications (Article 45 and Annex VIII to CLP)

If you, as an EU-based company, plan to import a hazardous mixture from a UK-based company into the EU, it is you, not the UK-based company who will have to submit the poison centre notification to the appointed body in each Member State where you place the mixture on the market (note that “import” is placing on the market).

A notification is needed before you place the mixture on the market. Note that Annex VIII to the CLP Regulation will apply to mixtures intended for consumer and professional use from 1 January 2021.

What about the PIC Regulation?

As an EU company, you need to notify exports to the UK of chemicals under the PIC Regulation. UK companies on the other hand no longer have obligations under the PIC Regulation. This also means that UK companies no longer have to notify their exports through ePIC or have access to the application.