From January 2021, you will be required to notify ECHA (= European Chemicals Agency) if your products contain Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) in a concentration of more than 0.1 percent by mass and are produced, sold or imported on the EU market.

You believe this doesn't concern you? You could be mistaken, though, because many products contain:

• Lead, for example in copper or aluminium alloys (fasteners, housings, cable conduits, etc.),
• Plasticizers (phthalates), such as DEHP

According to the latest IMDS newsletter, the deactivation of the Rec019 data sheets (originally 1 July 2020) will be postponed. It is expected to be implemented with Release 13.0, which is scheduled for March 10, 2021. The reasons given are the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic and the SCIP reporting requirements for the automotive and electronics industries.

The IMDS Steering Committee, representatives of the ZVEI and the supplier associations (AIAG, CLEPA and JAPIA) continuously discuss how

From 17 July 2020, further substances will be identified as SVHC in the IMDS. The updated REACH candidate list can be found here.

From 4 July 2020, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), its salts and other compounds related to PFOA are banned under Annex XVII, entry 68 of REACH.

The prohibition applies:

• manufacture, use and placing on the market,
• substances, preparations or articles and
• a concentration ≥ 25 ppb PFOA including its salts or 1,000 ppb of one or a combination of PFOA-related substances.

Here you can find the current EU Commission Regulation (PDF).

With Release 12.1 (active since 25 March) and 12.2 (planned for June 2020) there are some new features in IMDS:

• CAMDS interface
• Definition of an IMDS standard contact person
• Deactivation of preselection for application codes
• Warning regarding preliminary material data sheets (MDS)
• Display of the supplier code in the inbox and outbox

In our two-hour release webinar (No. 6125) we will present the changes in detail and show you how to work with them correctly.