Red Flag Chemicals is a far-east based chemical manufacturer that exports its products globally including to the European Union. There is a number of EU based companies, including some in the UK, that import an organic solvent from Red Flag in quantities varying from 1 to 1500 tonnes per year. This chemical is also made by other companies both from within and from outside the EU.
Red Flag Chemicals has been approached by a number of the EU based companies it supplies asking what they should do about registering this chemical now that REACH has entered into EU law, as they want to ensure continued supply. Red Flag wants to continue to supply into the EU market as the chemical is commercially important to them. However, in looking at the REACH Regulations, Red Flag realised that because they are not EU based they cannot register the substance themselves.
On talking to their EU based customers, including those in the UK, they found that some would be prepared to take on registration of the solvent as importers but others are reluctant to do so, lacking the resources and experience required. Red Flag have concerns about the logistics of supporting a number of individual importers to register their substance and they also want to retain control over their confidential data.
Red Flag Chemicals have therefore decided that they will appoint an Only Representative (OR) to represent their interests in order to retain control of their export. The OR they have chosen is based in Scotland and has considerable experience of chemical regulatory affairs and the handling of chemicals. Red Flag inform their EU based customers who import this solvent that they will appoint this OR so that they are now considered as Downstream Users (DU) under REACH and should talk to the OR in this role.
The OR submitted the pre-registration information to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) between June and December 2008. Because there are other manufacturers of this chemical in the EU and other sources of importation, there are a number of pre-registrations notified to the ECHA. Following the end of the pre-registration period, the OR will participate in the Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF) for this chemical. Once agreement is reached within the SIEF on the information package to be supplied to support registration, the OR will prepare and submit the registration dossier.