Monthly Briefing – March 2011 issue

In this month's briefing:

• How will substance evaluation work under REACH? Geraint Roberts looks at the preliminary discussions between ECHA and the member states;

• An outline of the recent “Korea REACH” proposals is given by Herb Estreicher, Marcus Navin-Jones and Young No of Keller and Heckman, and Peter Jihoon Choi of Sojong Partners;

• Russia's chemicals legislation is explained by Dimitriy Skobelev, Alexander Kozlov and Anna Makarova of VNICSMV and Igor Kukushkin of the RCU;

• There is a new one-generation reprotoxicity test guideline from OECD but the debate rumbles on, says Sean Milmo;

• Sean Milmo reports from the recent European Commission risk assessment conference on how risk assessors are failing to tackle uncertainties;

• Companies face serious challenges in compiling extended safety data sheets, says Doeke van der Schaaf, Linda-Jean Cockcroft and Selma Hertsenberg of TNO Triskelion;

• Printing ink firms say food contact material rules in Germany and Switzerland could prove a headache, especially for SMEs, says Emma Davies;

• The US toy industry is facing a constantly changing regulatory landscape when it comes to heavy metal limits, reports Elizabeth Grossman;

• Japan is further developing its research programme for endocrine disrupters, reports Holly Else;

• Dr REACH, Steffen Erler, says firms must make plans for updating their registration dossiers;

• In this month's legal spotlight, Jean-Philippe Montfort, Terence Tung and Sébastien Louvion of law firm Mayer Brown explain how China's food contact material legislation is being modernised;

• In this month's Guest Column, FECC director general Uta Jensen-Korte says distributors face a major challenge in transferring exposure scenarios to eSDSs.