In an article published on November 16, 2017 by regulatory news provider Chemical Watch, reporter Clelia Oziel informed that on September 15, 2017, the trade body PlasticsEurope filed a second lawsuit against the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) over bisphenol A (BPA, CAS 80-05-7) to the European Court of Justice. The case challenges ECHA’s decision to update BPA’s entry in the Candidate List of substances of very high concern (SVHC) for authorization by adding endocrine disrupting properties affecting human health, as enacted in summer 2017 (FPF reported).

Initially, ECHA added BPA to the Candidate List in January 2017, due to its reprotoxic properties (FPF reported). In May 2017, PlasticsEurope opposed this listing (FPF reported), claiming that BPA is mainly used as an intermediate, putting this substance outside the scope of REACH. In its second case filed now, PlasticsEurope said that ECHA’s decision to update BPA’s entry “infringed the principle of legal certainty by applying inconsistent and unforeseeable criteria to assess the endocrine disrupting properties for human health of BPA.”

Antonello Romano, senior European policy advisor at PlasticsEurope, further explained that “BPA cannot be identified as an SVHC under Article 57(f) when it has already been identified as an SVHC under Article 57(c),” because “Article 57(f) is reserved for ‘other substances’ that are not covered by the preceding sections of the article, and not for ‘other properties’ of the same substance.” Further, Romano said that PlasticsEurope sees the claims concerning BPA’s endocrine disrupting properties “as not sufficiently substantiated,” and also added that ECHA’s decision is “premature,” given that the final results from the large program on testing BPA’s toxicity, Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA (CLARITY-BPA) (FPF reported), are yet to be expected “in the first half of 2018.”

Romano further commented that the court “has discretion ‘as to the possible, or potential joining of the two cases.’”

Read more

Clelia Oziel (November 16, 2017). “PlasticsEurope files second case against Echa over BPA.Chemical Watch

EU (2017). “Action brought on 15 September 2017 – PlasticsEurope v ECHA (Case T-636/17).Official Journal of the European Union (published November 13, 2017).

ACTA Group (December 21, 2017). “Top international news in chemical policy and regulation- December 2017: European Union and United Kingdom.The National Law Review

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