ITA Helps California Companies Avoid Unnecessary Costs of Exporting to Europe
June 21, 2013
(ITA)
The Department of Commerce’s International
Trade Administration (ITA) worked with
KLA-Tencor Corporation of Milpitas, California
and other semiconductor equipment manufacturers
to provide clarity as to whether spare parts
for large machines fall within the scope of the
revised European Union Directive on the
restriction of hazardous substances in
electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS II).
ITA’s assistance helped save these companies
hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary
costs per year.
Why it Matters
The RoHS II Directive initially did not provide
a clear scope statement regarding spare parts
provided in support of large-scale machines.
This resulted in confusion and could have led
to inadvertent non-compliance, or excessive
resource allocation to inapplicable
regulations, depending on how the Directive
would be interpreted. If the scope of the RoHS
II Directive had been deemed to include spare
parts for large-scale machines, semiconductor
equipment manufacturers and other companies in
the large machine sector would have had to
expend significant resources to certify spare
parts to the Directive’s requirements. One
company, KLA-Tencor, estimated RoHS II
compliance costs for spare parts would have
cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars per
year. This additional cost could have reduced
U.S. exports of semiconductor equipment
machinery and other large machine sectors to
Europe.
The Problem
The RoHS II Directive, which became mandatory
in January 2013, was poorly worded and
potentially subject to a narrow interpretation
that could have brought almost all spare parts
for large-scale stationary machines or
large-scale fixed installations into scope. If
this interpretation had been upheld, all
manufacturers of large-scale machines, which
are otherwise excluded from the scope of RoHS
II, would have had to prove that spare parts
met the requirements of RoHS II and thus would
have to absorb this incongruous cost of
compliance. (RoHS II, among other restrictions,
requires that electrical and electronic
equipment not contain more than a restricted
amount of lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium
and mercury.)
The Solution
ITA’s Market Access and Compliance (MAC) unit
helped organize a Commerce-wide advocacy effort
to help persuade the EU RoHS Technical Advisory
Committee to provide a clearly worded
interpretation covering the exclusion of spare
parts from RoHS II. The Commission’s Frequently
Asked Questions Guide subsequently clarified
the relevant RoHS II provisions to ensure that
spare parts for large-scale machines actually
fall outside the scope of the Directive. ITA
provided strategic advice, conferences, and
meetings with key European officials
instrumental in RoHS policy development.
Working closely with U.S. companies, ITA
creates, expands and defends market access for
U.S. goods and services overseas through the
Trade Agreements Compliance Program. “We
promote policy that develops a more favorable
business climate for U.S. companies in global
markets; we employ commercial diplomacy to
resolve trade barriers; and we leverage our
bilateral and multilateral trade agreements to
ensure our trading partners live up to their
commitments so that our businesses can compete
on a level playing field.” - Assistant
Secretary for Market Access and Compliance,
Michael C. Camuñez.
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