A New World: Recalls and Risk Assessments

11 Mar 2015

Attitudes towards risk are changing. In this fluctuating regulatory landscape, how do you know when to start conducting a risk assessment or consider a recall? Intertek Product Intelligence and Hogan Lovells teamed up to discuss these challenges.

attitudes towards risk are changing. in this fluctuating regulatory landscape, how do you know when to start conducting a risk assessment or consider a recall?  intertek product intelligence and hogan lovells teamed up to discuss these challenges.

intertek's product intelligence business offers advisory services to the retail and retail supply chain markets, focussed in the areas of safe product designs, product quality, and product performance analytics. hogan lovells is a global legal practice that helps corporations, financial institutions, and governmental entities across the spectrum of their critical business and legal issues, globally and locally.

this past january, both parties collaborated to present a unique seminar. hogan lovells opened the discussion by highlighting how attitudes towards product safety are evolving around the globe: the distinctions between product safety and product quality are blurring, impact on human safety is no longer seen as a separate issue to environmental safety.  product safety regimes are being reviewed and introduced, both in countries where these bodies have been long-established, and in countries where previously, regulatory requirements have been relatively light, so it is vital to appreciate the nuances between different markets. with products being marketed around the world, gone are the days where a company can only notify a select few countries of a product issue. hogan lovells representatives from france & germany candidly described how local authorities, in neighbouring countries, can require drastically different approaches.

while hogan lovells presented the challenge of recalls, intertek product intelligence continued the discussion by presenting solutions businesses can consider to tackle this challenge.  intertek product intelligence offered expertise on conducting risk assessments in a proactive way, as well as when a company is already facing a product issue in the market.  practical guidance was offered on how to interpret and apply the rapex risk assessment (rag) to your business.

risk is not only considered in a crisis situation, but is an inherent part of the product development process. by questioning what safety or quality looks like to your brand, and by extension, to your customer, the foundations are in place for proactive risk assessments. product intelligence panellists discussed how to use tools such as injury & fatality data analysis, foreseeable use, and human factors assessments, in order to avoid a product issue, in the first place.

"a new world: recalls & risk assessments" marks the first time product intelligence & hogan lovells have collaborated on an event such as this, and is the culmination of a long-standing relationship between the two businesses. intertek product intelligence hold a consumer product safety training several times a year, at which hogan lovells routinely present on product safety and regulatory risks in europe.

for further information, please contact kathryn wheatley, business development, product intelligence on +44 207 239 4964 or email product.intelligence@intertek.com