Board of Appeal publishes a decision on an appeal against a substance evaluation decision for octocrilene

ECHA/NI/16/52

In Case A-013-2014, the Board of Appeal dismissed the Appellant’s claim that a substance evaluation decision should be annulled on the grounds that the decision should also have been addressed to a company that had registered the substance after the draft decision had already been sent to certain registrants for comments.

Helsinki, 8 December 2016 – The Board of Appeal also decided, in response to a second claim on a similar although slightly different issue, that the Agency had committed a procedural error. The Agency made the error by failing to address the contested decision to another company that had submitted a registration for the substance before the draft decision was sent to certain registrants for comments but which had not, at that moment in time, received a registration number.

The Board of Appeal concluded however that considering the circumstances of this particular case, the Agency’s error was not sufficient to necessitate the annulment of the contested decision.

In its decision the Board of Appeal also found that, after a substance evaluation decision has been adopted, all the members of the joint submission for that substance are potentially concerned by its outcomes. In particular, when new tests on vertebrate animals are required, this may be relevant information for the registration dossiers of present and future registrants. As a result, costs should be shared by all co-registrants (present and future) in a fair, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

The Board of Appeal also examined and dismissed the Appellant’s other subsidiary pleas requesting the annulment of requests to provide information on the bioaccumulation potential of the substance and on an androgenised female stickleback screen study. The appeal was therefore dismissed in its entirety.