Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (EU Market Surveillance Regulation, in short: EU-MÜV) is to be applied with legally binding effect as of July 16, 2021. With the implementation of the EU-MÜV and the extension to all products with the Act on the Reorganization of Market Surveillance (in short: Market Surveillance Act - MÜG, published in BGBl. Part I No. 32, 17.06.2021, p. 1723) in Germany, every product must have a responsible economic operator from July 16, 2021 (cf. the guidelines on the EU-MÜV, published in the EU Official Journal as Notice 2021/C 100/01), who is the contact person for the respective applicable harmonization legislation. The amendment to the law includes fulfillment service providers and marketplace operators in particular in the product responsibility.
Since the EU-MÜV only applies to products from the harmonized area, the German government has identified a gap for products that are currently only regulated by the Product Safety Act (ProdSG). According to the explanatory memorandum to the law, the MÜG also covers purely national products in addition to the European harmonized products regulated in Section 1 (1). These are, on the one hand, products that are subject to the European Product Safety Directive (GPS 2001/95/EC) and, on the other hand, B2B products that are not regulated at European level (commercial products). The products mentioned in Section 1 (2) MÜG are already covered by the ProdSG. In order to cover this scope of application for the market surveillance provisions, Section 1 (2) MÜG refers to the other products within the scope of application of the ProdSG. In order to continue the previous legal situation for these products in terms of content, the collision rule from Section 1 Paragraph 4 Sentence 1 ProdSG is transferred to the MÜG. This includes certain consumer products such as decorative items.
Pursuant to Section 2 No. 3 MÜG, the term "economic operator" is taken over in terms of content from Article 3 No. 13 of the EU MOT and adapted to the effect that the MÜG also covers products that are not harmonized at European level. Affected economic operators can transfer certain obligations to an authorized representative and obtain comprehensive product compliance support by appointing an authorized representative in writing. Platform operators in particular will choose this route and accordingly only allow non-European distributors with a contracted authorized representative.
Both regulations will have a major impact on consumer products sold via online marketplaces. From July 16, 2021, the market surveillance authorities will have extensive possibilities to restrict the sale of unsafe consumer products via marketplaces and thus to oblige the marketplace operators to offer only safe consumer products.
GLOBALNORM offers a full AR service (authorized representative) for this purpose - especially in combination with the IT-supported Product Compliance Portal ROGER WILLCO. If you are interested, please send us an inquiry!
