An AR is a natural or legal person established within the EU, who has received written approval from a manufacturer to act on its behalf in relation to specified tasks regarding the manufacturer’s obligations under the relevant EU harmonisation legislation or under the requirements of the Market Surveillance Regulation. For clarity, a natural person is an identifiable individual and a legal person is a corporate body.
An AR acts as a liaison between the manufacturer based outside the EU and a national authority within the EU. When non-EU companies don’t have any actual presence or an address in the EU, an AR serves as their contact person.
An authorised representative agreement is signed between the two parties, allowing the manufacturer to display the authorised representative’s address on its product packaging. Manufacturers are obligated to display the address of an economic operator (add link to “What is the market surveillance regulation?” article) on their product packaging.
In the next article, we will explain what the obligations of an authorised representative are.
