Viewpoint - On May 11, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced that it will publish company names and registration numbers for substances registered as hazardous following a commission services ruling. Up until now there has been no public way of linking a company to a particular substance that has been registered, unless the company freely advertises the fact on its company website or in a suppliers' database.

This new information is undoubtedly linked to ClientEarth and Chemsec's recent initiation of a legal case against ECHA for non-disclosure of the companies linked to the registration of 356 of the most hazardous substances. The Reach legal text did not provide a route for the release of company names being linked to particular substances.

As ReachReady, we spend a great deal of time helping companies of all sizes, from all parts of the world and all parts of the supply chain meet their Reach obligations and through those discussions we can see many pros and cons of this new information being disseminated publicly.
Firstly, it will even out the playing field in the substance information exchange forums (SIEFs), as currently only lead registrants know who has registered through their role in providing access to the joint submission. In most SIEFs, joint registrants have no idea who else has registered and so wouldn't know if a competitor was compliant or not. The releasing of this information will also be a huge benefit to downstream users who will be able to use the tool to reassure themselves that their supplier has registered, that they are trading legally and that there will be continuity of supply. It will also aid self enforcement within the supply chain and help eliminate free riders. However, as companies can also claim confidentiality by paying a fee, this will be an option many registrants will undoubtedly take.

Claiming confidentiality, however, will be yet another cost to add to the ever increasing cost of Reach compliance, added to which we assume that there will also be criteria around the confidentiality claim that will have to be satisfied for the claim to be secure. The disclosure will also cover all hazardous substances, not just those which are substances of very high concern (which currently captures some which are carcinogens, mutagens and reprotoxins or those that are persistent, bioaccumulative and/or toxic). The term hazardous will also capture substance that are flammable, explosive, oxidizing, sensitizing, irritant, taking the disclosure to many thousands of substances, some of which will be found in many everyday products. The dissemination of company information is also unprecedented, as it does not happen in the regulation of pesticides or biocidal products. The disclosure of this information will also set alarm bells ringing for distributors who may well see their customers go direct to their supplier and freeze them out of the supply chain.

Overall, this is just one more thing for those who are already wrestling with Reach registration, updating safety data sheets with new data and exposure scenarios to manage. Gone are the days of spontaneous supply.