The first manual check by South-Korean authorities is the OR (Only Representative) check. The OR is an intermediary, and is mandatory for companies based outside of South Korea wishing to pre-register the substance they export to Korea.
Through this procedure, Korean authorities will verify on a case-by-case basis said OR, the identity of the foreign company appointing the OR, the power of attorney, information on the importer and information on the substance itself.
This check is not automatic, and it can take up to 10 working days to be completed. It needs to be done before the pre-registration submission.
Substance check
Here, Korean authorities will focus on the pre-registration itself. Will be reviewed: the substance’s basic data, its uses, classification and tonnage band, as well as a second check on the foreign company’s data and the importer’s identity.
This second “authority check” should take around 10 working days too. It is vital to anticipate as much as possible. Indeed, at the end of the pre-registration window, the Korean authorities might very well be overwhelmed and verifications would end up taking more time.
A company failing to anticipate and pre-register a reasonable amount of time before the deadline takes the risk of missing the end of the pre-registration only because of the time it will take to check its file.
Do I need to pre-register?
The substances that should be pre-registered are called phase-in substances (the list is available here). If you manufacture in or import to South Korea a phase-in substance at more than 1 tonne per year, and your situation does not trigger an exemption under K-REACH, then you are expected to pre-register.
It is necessary to pre-register these substances in order to be legally able to keep on manufacturing or importing them after 30th June 2019, at the end of the pre-registration period. Otherwise, your activities will not be possible anymore and the responsible persons of companies that do not want to comply face fines, or even jail sentences.
