The WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU stipulates in Article 17 that « (…) a producer (…) established in antoher Member State is allowed, (…) to appoint a legal or natural person established on its territory as the authorised representative that is responsible for fulfilling the obligations of that producer, pursuant to this Directive on its territory. » This regulatory condition is appliesd in all EU member states and also in Norway and the UK.

Despite of the lacking of a similar clause in the original Batteries Directive 2006/66/EC, many country organisations now accept the WEEE Authorised Representative’s role also for batteries and accumulators. Packaging, however, is not yet synchronized. Here still the local entities carry the obligations or if no such entity exists it is rather accepted not to have registrations. Germany has included the term of the Authorised Representative in its packaging legislation VerpackG (see §§ 9 (2) 2 an 35 (2)), but the registration still needs to be executed by the obliged (foreign) producer himself. Authorised Representatives, however, can execute the sales volume reporting for packaging in Germany.

The Authorised Representative carries the extended producer responsibility of the original producer and can be made fully liable. Hence, it is vital to provide the Authorised Representative with all means for the correct execution of this responsibility. The Authorised Representative, in return, nieeds to guide carefully his producer in order to avoid liability cases to happen. Particularly vulnerable are the areas of marking of products, batteries and packaging, comprehensive registrations, the reporting of correct sales volumes and the information for users and the communication of take back solutions. A good Authorised Representative guides his producer through this maze of requirements.

Due to the requirement for an establishment of a natural or juridical person in each state, in reality there is no Authorised Representative that can provide this function solely with his own organisation. Instead, networks of service providers are made use of. Due to the common practice of contract clauses that pass on financial consequences of liability cases, each producer is well advised to choose a competent partner who takes a pro-active role in the setup.

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