Equipment manufacturers will be at risk if they rely only on certificates of conformity to prove they have complied with UK RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) legislation which comes into force next July.

“The certificate itself is not enough,” Gary Nevison who heads RoHS activities at distributor Farnell InOne told Electronics Weekly. “Firms need to be seen to have processes for vetting their suppliers.”

This message is echoed by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML), recently appointed as the UK’s RoHS compliance enforcer.

“A certificate of conformity is not necessarily enough,” said NWML RoHS technical manager Chris Smith. “There needs to be a risk assessment of the quality of that information.”

Nevison: certificate itself is not enough

UK RoHS legislation provides a ‘due diligence’ defence against being convicted of selling products that contain too much of six banned substances including lead, cadmium and mercury.

Due diligence requires that ‘all reasonable steps’ have been taken to avoid committing the offence. However, what all reasonable steps are only becomes clear retrospectively, once cases have been tried.

Before then, “this will be a judgment call, but our view is that it must mean something more than simply relying without question on what you are told by your suppliers”, said Steven Webb, general counsel for Premier Farnell. “Under the terms of the new regulations, it is clear that blind faith in a statement of compliance from a supplier of components or sub-assemblies is unlikely to be sufficient. It is therefore essential that electronic designers and engineers are carefully scrutinising the evidence provided by product manufacturers or are using a distributor which will do this for them.”

Realistic pre-litigation advice on the likely meaning of all reasonable steps is under discussion across Europe between interested parties including European electronics industry body EICTA and the UK DTI.

Due diligence and all reasonable steps have been in UK law for around 80 years, said Smith, and is used in legislation for health and safety, product safety and the sale of goods act.

Firms are advised to use their experience with existing due diligence laws to guide their approach to taking all reasonable steps.

www.rohs.gov.uk