Difference in obligations of a manufacturer, a distributer and an importer?

Considering this question for the EU CE marking, economic operators are divined in the regulations as following; you are either a manufacturer, distributor, importer or authorized representatives. You need to clearly check your role.

It is necessary to provide for a clear and proportionate distribution of obligations which correspond to the role of each economic operator in the supply and distribution chain.

The manufacturer, having detailed knowledge of the design and production process, is best placed to carry out the conformity assessment procedure. Conformity assessment should therefore remain solely the obligation of the manufacturer.

Any economic operator that either places radio equipment on the market under his own name or trade mark or modifies radio equipment in such a way that compliance with this Directive may be affected should be considered to be the manufacturer and should assume the obligations of the manufacturer.

The distributor makes radio equipment available on the market after it has been placed on the market by the manufacturer or the importer and should act with due care to ensure that its handling of the radio equipment does not adversely affect the compliance of the radio equipment.

When placing radio equipment on the market, every importer should indicate on the radio equipment his name, registered trade name or registered trade mark and the postal address at which he can be contacted.

For more info on the obligations of each economic operator, please contact us. We can also help you understand where you fit in and if you have factories and other companies acting as co-manufacturer, we can help you gain the needed info to tackle the market access in a correct way.