Waiting Until You Get Caught

We’ve helped clients in emergency situations, and then followed with lower cost, lower stress planning for compliance going forward.

Stuff happens. But this a problematic strategy to follow consciously.

• The timeframe to get compliance documents from suppliers is usually too long. Especially if you are not a major customer of theirs.
• Without the time needed to get compliance docs from suppliers, much more lab testing is needed, greatly increasing the cost.
• Lab upcharges for expediting testing can be 50% or higher.
• Depending on the Directive or Regulation, some EU courts have ruled that “a reasonable time for transmission” of compliance documentation is three days – the time it takes for Fedex to deliver the documents.
• Squeezing the schedule too hard invites errors.
• CE “Market Surveillance” means once you’re caught in one EU country (“member state”), national authorities are obligated to inform the other member states. This rapidly causes import problems in all EU member states.
• Once you’re caught, authorities tend to look at your documentation very closely. For this and future shipments.

In other words, please don’t let this happen to you.