Exporting into the EU from UK after Brexit

DMLqms

Starting to get Involved
Hello All - help needed. I'm going round in circles so can someone please give me a definitive answer to the following question: As a UK-based (virtual) manufacturer of medical devices, after Brexit must we appoint a company within the EU/EEA to act as our 'importer' or does each of our EU-based customers become the importer by default when they place an order? We have an authorised rep agreement in place ready to go once we know Brexit timescales. Any help appreciated as our commercial people should be dealing with this urgently! :oops:
 

chris1price

Trusted Information Resource
Based on your description, I do not believe you need to appoint an importer, the importer will be the customer who brings the product into EU. They will each have to comply with the obligations under Article 13. If they are reselling the product, then the obligations under Article 13-3, 13-4 and 13-5 become important. If they are using the product themselves (ie not placing on the market), then I can't see how these clauses can be applied.

If there is a no-deal Brexit, I can foresee each customer having issues with customs and taxes, but that is a separate issue.

As with all things MDR / Brexit, this is just my interpretation :)
 

pkost

Trusted Information Resource
You do not need to "appoint" an importer, it is whoever receives the product into the market first, and they automatically assume the responsibilities, with the new reg they will likely come to you in advance and request documentation and agreements, but it isn't necessarily you who selects them

With the implications for the importer in the new reg, you may choose (as a result of expectations of your customers) to work with a single EU organisation to act as your sole importer. I think the view at the moment (and would welcome other opinions) is that the importer doesn't need to handle the product - title of the product passes from you -> importer -> distributor but physical product does not
 

snowball852

Starting to get Involved
You do not need to "appoint" an importer, it is whoever receives the product into the market first, and they automatically assume the responsibilities, with the new reg they will likely come to you in advance and request documentation and agreements, but it isn't necessarily you who selects them

With the implications for the importer in the new reg, you may choose (as a result of expectations of your customers) to work with a single EU organisation to act as your sole importer. I think the view at the moment (and would welcome other opinions) is that the importer doesn't need to handle the product - title of the product passes from you -> importer -> distributor but physical product does not

This is our company's understanding as well and our legal department reached out to some external consultants and confirmed this.
 
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