New law: New rules make it easier for businesses transitioning from EU product labelling rules to post-Brexit British rules

The new UK regime, known as ‘UK Conformity Assessment’ (UKCA), was introduced for products placed on the market in England, Wales and/or Scotland after Brexit, to replace the previous EU regime. The regime change particularly affects businesses making electronic products, mobile phones, machinery, outdoor equipment, PPE and pyrotechnics.

The new rules require that, from 1 January 2022:

• Products placed on the British market must be assessed by a UK Approved Body rather than an EU one.
• The EU’s CE mark on a product, indicating it has been through the EU’s conformity assessment regime, is replaced by a UKCA mark indicating the product has passed the UK conformity assessment.
• Importers of products must have a UK establishment to supply a product on the British market commercially.

In order to give businesses time to move from the EU to the new UK regime, a transition period was introduced. In effect, products carrying the EU’s CE mark can still lawfully be sold in Great Britain (GB) for a period of one year after introduction of the UK regime on 1 January 2022 - ie until 31 December 2022.

However, businesses still face difficulties transitioning from the EU to the UK regime, due in part to lack of capacity among UK Conformity Assessment Bodies and in part to lack of business readiness.

Particularly, as the conformity assessment procedures can take some time to complete, many manufacturers who have taken action under EU conformity assessment procedures have not been able to place their relevant product on the British market before the end of 2022 when the transition period expires.

New regulations will provide further ‘easement’ of the transitional rules to help these businesses. The new rules say:

• Where steps have been taken to achieve conformity assessment for a product under the EU regime before the end of 2022 (ie during the transition period when products meeting EU requirements continue to be recognised in Great Britain) but the product has not yet been placed on the British market, those steps will be treated as having been taken under the UK conformity assessment procedures for the purposes of any application for UKCA marking. This only applies for as long as any certificate issued in respect of those products is valid, or until 31 December 2027, whichever is sooner. This will stop products partially processed under the EU regime from having to be retested and recertified from scratch under the UK regime.
• Products carrying the CE marking which are already in GB, or are imported from the EU before the end of 2022, can continue to be sold in GB without having to comply with the UKCA regime.
• Spare parts imported to repair, replace or maintain CE-marked products already on the British market can be used in Great Britain provided that they meet the same requirements as the original products did when they were put on the British market.

Where products placed on the market in GB are from the European Economic Area (and, in some cases, Switzerland) new rules will also allow, in certain circumstances and up until 31 December 2025, use of sticky labels to label those products, or allow labelling to appear on documents accompanying such products, rather than it having to appear on the products themselves.

The government has issued guidance ‘UKCA Implementation Guidance: Version 2.0: June 2022’ to help businesses though the transition and launched a series of webinars ‘Guidance: Webinars for using the UKCA marking and placing goods on the market in Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ covering the labelling rules in both GB and Northern Ireland.

Operative date

• Now

Recommendation

• Businesses transitioning from EU labelling rules to UK post-Brexit labelling rules should review their transition plan for opportunities to reduce costs and complexity.
• Check out the government webinars and guidance on the GOV.UK website.