EU Reminds Chemical Companies of Registration, Notification Procedures for Brexit

The European Chemicals Agency reminded companies that they still “need to prepare for a UK withdrawal without a transition period, that is, one without an agreement ratified by both sides ensuring that the withdrawal happens in an orderly manner,” in a press release dated March 18. ECHA has published instructions for what actions companies need to take, such as transferring their REACH registrations from a U.K.-based registrant to a registrant based in an EU member state. “The Agency would like to emphasise that while UK companies can initiate a REACH asset transfer in ECHA’s IT tools at any time before the date of withdrawal, the successor company in the EU-27 should only accept the transfer after the actual date of the withdrawal,” it said.

ECHA recently created a manual transition procedure for chemical exporters to meet the 35-day notification requirement for their shipments to the U.K. around the time of Brexit. “These export notifications will take effect if the UK is, as of the withdrawal date, a third country without a withdrawal agreement entering into force,” ECHA said. “This is a temporary procedure that will allow EU-27 companies that are exporting chemicals subject to the PIC Regulation to the UK right after the withdrawal to comply with their obligations to notify their exports 35 days before the expected date of import.” A permanent process would be established after Brexit, and “ECHA will then follow up with the companies and designated national authorities that have used the temporary procedure,” it said.