CE.way set up an office in the UK to serve cosmetic companies post-Brexit

22-Jan-2019

CE.way Regulatory Consultants, an Irish based company providing cosmetics regulatory and testing services, such as EU cosmetics responsible person service, product information file preparation, safety assessments (CPSR), stability, challenge and efficacy testing, has set up a new office in London last week.

A new office was set up in light of the upcoming Brexit, which is scheduled to happen on 29th March 2019. CE.way is acting as the EU cosmetics responsible person for many companies from around the world, many of whom sell their cosmetic products also in the UK.

In order to be able to continue serving those clients and in order to help other cosmetic companies gain regulatory compliance and seamless entry to both the EU and UK without having to deal with multiple service providers, the decision has been made to set up CE.way Regulatory Consultants UK Ltd.

The UK based company will offer full support to cosmetics companies wanting to achieve regulatory compliance in the UK post-Brexit.

What changes will Brexit bring to the cosmetics industry? A “no deal” scenario seems closer than ever after the recent rejection of the proposed Brexit agreement by the UK Parliament, although other options, such as additional negotiations, a new referendum or even no Brexit at all, remain possible. If Brexit takes place, the UK will be considered a third country on March 30, 2019.

The EU Commission has recently published a Notice to stakeholders: Withdrawal of the United Kingdom and EU rules in the field of cosmetic products, and the UK has, on the other hand, published a document called Appointing nominated persons to your business if there’s no Brexit deal.

Combining the guidelines and requirements mentioned in both of these documents, we can conclude the following:

Responsible person:

After March 29th 2019 (withdrawal date), the responsible person for the EU can no longer be established in the UK
If the cosmetic product is manufactured in the UK, the importer of those products in any of the remaining EU 27-member states will become the RP, or this task can be designated to another responsible person in the EU (such as CE.way)
Same goes for products produced elsewhere, for which the EU responsible person is currently based in the UK
The same will apply in the UK, companies that will want to sell cosmetics in the UK will need to have a UK based RP

CPNP notifications:

The UK based RP can transfer the CPNP notifications to the newly appointed EU RP by the withdrawal date
After withdrawal date, any CPNP notifications done by the UK based RPs will be deleted. After that date, the UK based RPs will no longer have access to the CPNP and won’t be able to transfer the CPNP notifications via the CPNP portal to the newly appointed EU RP
Therefore, if the CPNP notifications are not transferred by the withdrawal date, the newly appointed EU RP will have to do the CPNP notifications again from the beginning

PIF:

As of withdrawal date, the PIF has to be made available at the address of the newly appointed EU RP in one of the remaining 27-member states and it has to be adapted in terms of language requirements of the member state in question (if English is not an acceptable language for PIF in the country where the new RP is established, the PIF will have to be translated)

Labelling:

The name and address of the RP based in the UK will have to be replaced by the name and address of the newly appointed EU based RP

Cosmetics producers, importers, distributors and responsible persons, therefore, have to get ready for the forthcoming changes. Contact CE.way for advice on how to prepare for these changes.