ECHA publishes REACH and BPR data-sharing dispute decisions

ECHA made publicly available all 27 data sharing dispute decisions which have been issued under the REACH Regulation and the Biocides Products Regulation (BPR) to date.

EU Regulatory Bulletin contents

• Fieldfisher wins three EU contracts for the drafting of BPR guidance

• ECHA is consulting internally on guidance on Article 95 list of the BPR 

• Fieldfisher expresses a strong opinion on Article 58 (2) of REACH

• ECHA publishes guidance on chemical safety assessment

• ECHA publishes REACH and BPR data-sharing dispute decisions

---

ECHA made publicly available all 27 data sharing dispute decisions which have been issued under the REACH Regulation and the Biocides Products Regulation (BPR) to date.

The legal basis for bringing a data-sharing claim is set in Article 30 (3) of REACH. The most frequent issues invoked in the twenty-five RAECH disputes include, amongst others: lack of transparency regarding cost breakdown and cost sharing mechanism; the existence of a price not dependent on tonnage band; unjustified annual increase of letter of access price.

Against this number, there have been only two decisions based on Article 63(3) of the BPR, in which complainants claimed that the other party did not ''make every effort to reach an agreement'', as required by the law, by for example, slowing down the negotiation process.

It is expected that this initiative on part of ECHA will improve transparency, and most importantly will assist decision-makers, companies and other interested parties in understanding the former's reasoning in all these cases. Most importantly, the decisions indicate how the Agency interprets the obligations of ''best efforts'' in  the context of data-sharing negotiations under both regulations.  

A list of the decisions is available on ECHA website.