Monthly Briefing – December 2011/January 2012 issue

In this month's briefing:

• Geraint Roberts asks whether REACH is affecting the European chemical industry's ability to innovate;
• he also reports on how industry and pressure groups each see California's latest proposals for consumer product assessment as an improvement on last year's;
• Mamta Patel reports from Cefic's annual LRI workshop on the debate about how to optimise use of test data and resources for risk assessment;
• Sean Milmo reports from his chairing of a global regulation workshop in Hangzhou, China;
• Edgar Rodriguez Sierra of ChemADVISOR gives an overview of Brazil's chemical regulation programme;
• Bas Coolsma, Geoffrey Schouten and Hans Schoolderman of PwC offer advice on how to overcome issues relating to tax, cost sharing and data ownership that are causing problems in Siefs;
• Igor Danilov of law firm Salans looks at the skills and experience needed today to be an effective only representative;
• Meglena Mihova of EPPA says that if companies want to avoid future problems they must track member states' plans for Annex XV dossiers;
• Philippa Jones looks at the challenges posed by the recast RoHS Directive;
• Harmonisation of Ospar and REACH and preparing for 2013 registration have become hot topics for offshore chemical suppliers, says Tony Stovold, while Elizabeth Grossman looks at the fracking controversy in North America;
• In this month's CLP Clinic, REACHReady's Bob Warner reminds firms that CLP requires them to regularly review classifications;
• the Dr REACH column sees Cornelia Tietz of ReachCentrum ask firms if they are prepared for ECHA's publication of the classification and labelling inventory;
• in this month's Legal Spotlight, Jean-Philippe Montfort and Hadjira Mezaiti of Mayer Brown examine how the proposed biocidal products Regulation will affect treated articles;
• this month's NGO Platform sees EEB's Christian Schaible argue for more political backing for the rapid expansion of the candidate list; and
• the Danish EPA's Michel Schilling, in this month's Guest Column, sets out Denmark's priorities for chemicals under its imminent EU presidency.