The new rules under the General Product Safety Regulation (the Regulation) came into effect on 13 December 2024, affecting UK companies selling products to EU (and NI) consumers. The Regulation establishes a comprehensive framework aimed at ensuring that all non-food consumer products, in all sales channels (sold offline or online) on the EU market are safe. The Regulation further seeks to establish the better enforcement of rules and effectiveness of recalls of dangerous products and addresses gaps in the EU’s fragmented product safety regime. The Regulation replaces the current General Product Safety Directive and the Food Imitating Product Directive and includes the following new provisions:

• Precautionary principle shall be widely applied by all stakeholders for product safety.
• Specific product safety obligations for both economic operators and providers of online marketplaces.
• Reinforced product traceability requirements – operators may be required to establish a system of traceability for products that present a serious health and safety risk.
• List of aspects to be taken into account when assessing the safety of products, including for new technologies.
• Accident reporting to authorities by businesses – economic operators in the event of an accident must notify the relevant authority via the Safety Gate System (the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products) without undue delay after becoming aware of it.
• Reinforced market surveillance rules – it creates a single market surveillance regime for all products.
• Specific rules on how to handle product safety recalls, including a mandatory recall notice template, and right to remedy for consumers.

The Regulation will better address the challenges posed by the growth of online sales and direct imports from third countries and will effect a better enforcement of the rules improving the effectiveness of recalls of dangerous products. It also brings consumers the right to remedy for unsafe products and better communication channels to report safety issues. The new rules are also expected to allow considerable savings to the UK caused by unsafe products, amounting to EUR11.5bn each year.