ECHA offers help for REACH registrants still blocked by data sharing disputes

Tomorrow (November 30) is the final day to register chemicals manufactured or imported at over 1000 tonnes per annum under the REACH regulation in Europe.  Most companies have registered their chemicals (and many are rushing to complete the process now).  But some companies are still having some problems negotiating letters of access (LOAs) with data owners for endpoints they are hoping to fulfill with read-across or other data owned by other companies.

ECHA stipulates that companies should have worked out these details long ago, but understands that there are cases where cost disputes are still raging.  So they have offered some assistance.

Until 30 November at noon (Helsinki time), companies can request ECHA's help when they cannot agree with a previous registrant on sharing the costs of data already registered. 

The goal is to allow companies "to submit a registration dossier, even if the final decision has not been taken on their data sharing complaint. This is a temporary solution to enable these potential registrants to submit dossiers while their data sharing dispute is still awaiting resolution."  But ECHA goes on to say that "in any case, these potential registrants must be able to demonstrate that they have made every effort to share the cost of submitted data in a fair, transparent and non discriminatory way and that the other party did not make such efforts."

If your company is facing this problem, you are still responsible for registering your substance.  Contact ECHA immediately.

More more information, see the ECHA web site.