[email protected] wrote: > > I have been trying to educate our management on EMC. I am interested in the > source(s) of your statement: > > "Some EU countries require automatic product recalls for goods found to be > non-EMC-compliant!" > > Any info you have that would be of help to me would be appreciated. > > Best regards, > > Bob Heller > 3M Company
Dear Bob I'm copying this reply to the group because it will probably be of interest to a number of other companies. My source for this information is Dai Davis, a lawyer who is also an electrical engineer. As a lawyer he has specialised for many years in high-technology law and product liability law. Dai is an active member of the Society for Computers and Law in the UK, and also a British delegate to IEC TC56 - Legal Advisory Working Group. As you may know, different EU states get to implement their EMC laws in different ways, and they all have different approaches to enforcement and penalties. Dai has given papers on this topic several times, and my information comes from a paper he gave at the UK's "North West Club European" on the 18th June 1998. You can contact Dai directly on (+44) 385 771 721, or Email him at [email protected] Form Dai's paper, the countries whose EMC enforcement includes product recalls include: Norway: "It is understood there will be some active enforcement through random sampling. In appropriate circumstances, the authorities can order the supplier to undertake a product recall of non-compliant products." Sweden: "In appropriate circumstances, the authorities can order the supplier to undertake a product recall of non-compliant products." Other relevant comments: As of June 1998, Dai could not obtain full information on the enforcement activities in France, Spain, Greece, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, and the penalties for non-compliance in these countries were not known. Some country's penalty of first choice is the fine, particularly Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Portugal. Germany has already fined a number of companies for EMC non-compliance, typical fines being DM100,000 (say, US$25,000) and their enforcement agency aims to carry out 8,000 random product assessments a year. It is important to note that many countries' have automatic penalties, which do not require legal proceedings being brought in a court of law. Prison sentences are also possible, although thought unlikely unless a supplier (could be an importing agent) deliberately flouts an enforcement action. For example, in the UK the main method of enforcement is via Trading Standards Officers (TSOs) who can issue "suspension notices" prohibiting products from being sold until shown to be compliant, for up to 6 months. They can issue these suspension notices on their own authority with immediate effect, merely on their own understanding of the situation, for example by visiting a company and discovering that they do not have adequate EMC "due diligence" documentation. These enforcement actions are already occurring in the UK and some companies have lost significant market share as a direct result, but like most of the enforcement activities that do not go to a court of law they are not made public, so other companies may have a false sense of security about how heavily the EMC Directive is being enforced. (This is relevant to another present thread in emc-pstc). Even more important, maybe, than the enforcement actions of individual member states is the fact that their enforcement agencies have a network to inform each other of their actions. So if a Greek agency decided to take action against a manufacturer by banning sales of their products in Greece, he would notify the "clearing house" and the intention is that all the other EU states would also ban sales of that product. Apparently this process actually only takes a few days to operate. It should be remembered that the EMC Directive (like the LVD and MSD) is not based upon mandatory third-party certification or approvals at all - it is based entirely on manufacturer's self-declaration (even for so-called type-examined radiocomm products). But since the EC knows that some suppliers will take liberties with a system like this that relies upon honesty, they reserve the "big stick" of banning products from the EU market (the largest single market in the world) for non-compliant products. It is possible to obtain a legally admissable "failure test report" from a UKAS-accredited test laboratory in the UK for most consumer type products for around £250 Sterling (say, US$400), so this means that it should be relatively easy to arrange for UK Trading Standards to ban your illegal competition from the entire EU market for a number of months at least (if you can get hold of one of their products to test). Similar approaches may be effective in other EU countries too. The EMC Directive is an example of "speak softly but carry a big stick" legislation, and all it is really attempting to do is to make sure that manufacturers sell products that are reasonably fit for their declared purpose, as far as their electromagnetic environment is concerned. I hope that this helps answer your question, Bob. All the very best! EurIng Keith Armstrong Partner, Cherry Clough Consultants Member of EMC-UK phone: +44 1457 871 605 fax: +44 1457 820 145 Email: [email protected]
