What is Market surveillance?
If you have introduced a product to the European market, your product may be selected for inspection (market surveillance) by the relevant authorities.
Market surveillance refers to inspections or other verification activities undertaken by market surveillance authorities (MSA's) to check the compliance of products sold on the EU market with the relevant EU legislation.
The purpose of a market surveillance activity is to make sure that the requirements of the EU legislation are fulfilled in practice.
The scope of a market surveillance inspection may vary and can include the product documentation/information and/or the physical product.
While the legal requirements of the energy labelling and ecodesign legislation are specified by the European Commission for the entire EU market and are therefore binding for all EU member states, compliance inspections for products are arranged by the national MSA's of the member states or in collaborative actions of several MSA's from different member states. The latter are often supported by EU-level funding programs.
In addition, tools for MSA's are in place to share information and results among the individual Authorities and with the European Commission.
It is the formal duty of suppliers to cooperate with MSA's and to take immediate action to remedy any case of non-compliance.
What kind of information is checked during document inspection?
The product documentation shall contain information sufficient to enable MSA's to assess the compliance of a product. The MSA's may implement documentation inspections to verify, if:
- The documentation is available (e.g. in the EPREL database or on request to the supplier within a certain time).
- If the documentation provides the prescribed information (as specified in the framework and the product-specific ecodesign and energy labelling regulations).
- The values are properly declared.
The scope of a document inspection depends on the specific product group and may include the following documents and information sources:
- Ecodesign technical documentation.
- Declaration of conformity (DoC).
- Test reports.
- User manual.
- Supplier’s website.
- Professional repair instructions.
- List of equivalent models (must be in EPREL).
- Details of the calculation for parameters not directly measured (must be in EPREL).
- Label (must be in EPREL).
- Product Information Sheet (must be in EPREL).
- Energy labelling technical documentation (must be in EPREL).
It is the manufacturer, supplier, importer, or authorised representative's responsibility to make technical documentation available for inspection within 10 days of a request from the MSA. The MSA can collect some of the technical documentation directly from EPREL, but in some cases, further documentation is needed.
If MSA's find non-conformities in the documents or if the documentation is incomplete, they will approach you as a supplier to take corrective action.
For all products covered by the energy labelling legislation, labelling-related product information for market surveillance has to be provided by suppliers on the EPREL database.
What is to be considered for physical product inspections?
If a product’s documentation is not complete, consistent or correct, or because of any other reason, MSA's can also arrange and carry out:
- Product tests or.
- Visual inspections.
The selection of products to be inspected
Products selected for physical market surveillance inspections can be selected on a fully random basis, e.g. in a shop at the border, or based on a screening technique targeting suspicious products, e.g. products declaring dubious parameters, or based on individual consumer’s or competitor’s complaints.
Product tests
It depends on national legislation whether the MSA pays for the purchase of the product to be inspected or if you, as the supplier, are responsible for covering these costs.
The product-specific energy labelling and ecodesign regulations together with (harmonised) standards specify the test procedures for the product testing.
Testing of products usually takes place in a test laboratory or similar environment, but can also take place in different environments: at premises such as those of the manufacturer or in the place where the product is installed/put into service.
You as a supplier are obliged to collaborate with the authorities by providing needed information and undertaking corrective action if needed.
Product testing usually comprises two steps (although depending on national legislation and the product category or even on the product):
- Single-test: One unit of a specific model is first selected for the test.
- Triple-test: Three more units are tested in case the results of the single-test determined values exceed the tolerances.
In the case of a triple test, the single test result is disregarded, i.e. for compliance verification only the average of the three triple test results is relevant. Details can be found in the specific annex “Verification procedure for market surveillance purposes” of the respective ecodesign or energy labelling regulation.
Some MSA's only conduct the triple test if the supplier disputes the results of the single test, while others always perform single and triple tests. This variation arises from differences in national legislation.
Visual inspections
Examples of inspection of a visual requirement of a product:
- Presence of mandatory marks, signs, and information on or in a product or its packaging.
- Consumer information such as requirements for software update.
Enforcement
In case of detected non-compliance with a product, MSA's will require the respective market actors to take all appropriate corrective action to bring the product into compliance with specific requirements.
If a product does not comply with the ecodesign minimum requirements, a removal from the market is the normal consequence, but also a technical adjustment of the product is possible. In case of declaration errors, a re-declaration might be sufficient. However, the specification of the concrete enforcement measures lies within the responsibility of the EU member states and is done by the specific MSA.
Normally as a first step, MSA's, although not obliged to communicate with the supplier to agree on the appropriate voluntary measures. In case suppliers do not respond to the MSA request or do not in an appropriate way, typically stricter measures including fines are applied.
The MSA is entitled to recover the costs of document inspection and physical product testing from the supplier if the product is found to be non-compliant with the relevant legislation. Depending on national law, the cost of samples may or may not be reimbursed, or reimbursement may only occur if the product is compliant.