The EU Regulation 2019/1020 (Market Surveillance Regulation), coming into force on 16 July 2021, is ensuring that you sell safe products compliant with the applicable EU legislation.

In this article you will learn How the new Regulation affects you and your products.

What the new Market Surveillance Regulation is about?

As stated on the official website of the European Commission, "Market surveillance ensures that non-food products on the EU market do not endanger European consumers and workers. It also ensures the protection of other public interests such as the environment, security and fairness in trade. It includes actions such as product withdrawals, recalls and the application of sanctions to stop the circulation of non-compliant products and/or bring them into compliance."

The purpose of the new Regulation is:

• To ensure that your products are compliant with:
  - applicable EU legislation
  - requirements relating to health and safety.
  - requirements for protection of consumers, environment, public security and any other public interests.
• To make it easier for responsible authorities to get information or documents confirming compliance of the products with the applicable EU legislation.

Please familiarise yourself carefully with the new Regulation here

Requirements to you as the merchant selling to the EU:

1. You shall ensure that all the products you sell to the EU have all mandatory documents required by the applicable EU regulation (such as declarations of conformity, testing reports, etc.).
2. You shall have an authorized representative (i.e. a natural or legal person established in the EU who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer to act on its behalf in relation to specified tasks with regard to the manufacturer's obligations under the relevant Union harmonisation legislation or under the requirements of this Regulation). Both Joom and responsible authorities shall have the right to contact such authorized person for compliance with your products issues. In order to be able to act as your authorized representative, such person or entity shall be provided with the technical product documentation and shall be able to present it to Joom or responsible authorities upon a relevant request.
3. You shall ensure that the name, registered trade name or registered trademark, and contact details, including the postal address, of your authorized representative, shall be indicated on the product or on its packaging, the parcel or an accompanying document.

The products that are affected by the new Regulation are the products requiring CE certification according to the applicable EU legislation or other products listed in the Regulation itself. For more information about CE certification please refer to:

• Official resource of the European Commission on the CE marking
• Our CE marking article

Requirements to an authorised representative

According to the new Regulation, an authorised representative:

1. Shall be mandated by the manufacturer to perform the above-mentioned actions as well as fulfil other obligations on your behalf provided by the Regulation. That means that if you is not a brand owner, importer or manufacturer of the products subject to the CE certification or covered by the Regulation, you may need to require written authorization from the manufacturer or other person (such as your supplier) duly authorized by the manufacturer.
2. Shall be able to perform tasks specified in the mandate from you. In particular, they shall provide a copy of the mandate and any mandatory documents to the products you sell on the platform to the EU based customers to responsible authorities upon their request in a language determined by such authorities. Any information that will be provided by the authorized representative to the authorities shall be true, valid, up-to-date and full, while your authorized representative shall be aware of the consequences for the provision of non-correct, false or not full information.
3. Shall be aware of the applicable legislation, your obligations under such legislation and shall be able to provide adequate responses to authorities.

Important:

• The list above is non-exhaustive and we recommend you to refer to the Regulation itself in order to be aware of the full list of obligations of your authorised representative.
• In case you are not a manufacturer of the product (i.e. the product is not made under your name or a trademark), you shall ensure that the manufacturer appointed an authorized representative for the products you sell. In case the manufacturer did not do that, you as a seller must find a way of getting the manufacturer to do this.

Who is responsible for compliance with the new rules?

The merchant is solely responsible for identifying products affected by the applicable rules and for appointing a responsible person or identifying such responsible person appointed by the manufacturer.

Please note: In case we find out that any of your products offered on Joom are non-compliant with the new Regulation or with any applicable EU legislation, we will immediately remove your product from the platform and may take any other measures we find appropriate.

Related materials

• Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 of the European Parlament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on market surveillance and compliance of products and amending Directive 2004/42/EC and Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and (EU) No 305/2011
• Information about Single Market and Standards in the EU

Nothing stated above constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. This article is provided for information purposes only and may be updated by Joom from time to time.

In case you need assistance and have questions as to how you shall properly adjust your business to be compliant with the rules referred to above, please contact your legal advisors.