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EU Not Busting for RoHS Violations Yet

Rob Spiegel -- Design News, November 1, 2006

So far, the European Union (EU) countries have not identified any products that are out of compliance with the RoHS directive that went into affect on July 1. That will likely change in coming months. This is part 1 of a two-part article

Many companies knew they were not going to be compliant until this fall. They were betting that the EU wouldn’t immediately bust for RoHS violations following the July 1, 2006 deadline. Their bet was apparently right.

According to Steve Andrews from the UK’s Office of Science & Innovation – the arm of the Department of Trade and Industry that is in charge of monitoring for RoHS compliance – no companies have yet been hit with RoHS violations in the UK. “A far as I’m aware, there have not been any court actions or any penalties across the EU in relation to the introduction of the RoHS directive yet,” says Andrews.

Just because the violations are not yet stacking up doesn’t mean the EU isn’t getting ready to start making RoHS inspections in preparation to identifying out-of-compliant products. “[The fact that no one has been charged with violations] does not mean that the various enforcement authorities have done nothing,” says Andrews. “The UK enforcement authority, NWML (National Weights and Measurements Laboratory), have been undertaking various market surveillance activities to assess overall levels of compliance. They have been testing some pieces of equipment selected at random to establish compliance.”

Andrews notes that the NWML have taken action to contact some manufacturers regarding the results of the testing. “They have also written a number of companies seeking documentary evidence of compliance,” says Andrews. “None of this action is near court proceedings, and we don’t anticipate the initiation of that stage of action quite yet, but things are happening.”

Part two of this article looks at the progress EU countries are making as they prepare to test for RoHS compliance.

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