# Commission Decision of 14 December 2004 laying down guidelines for the notification of dangerous consumer products to the competent authorities of the Member States by producers and distributors, in accordance with Article 5(3) of Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document number C(2004) 4772) (Text with EEA relevance) (2004/905/EC), Division 4.1: Who must notify

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

The obligation to notify applies to both producers and distributors, within the limits of their respective activities and in proportion to their responsibilities.
There may be doubts as to who should be the first to give information. Because of this it will be useful for everyone involved in the supply chain to discuss the practical arrangements related to the responsibility for notification before the need arises. Then if a notification becomes necessary, the various operators will know what to do and unnecessary double notifications will be avoided. In addition, direct contact between the authorities and business is highly important if businesses have doubts about the fulfilment of their notification obligation.
If it is the manufacturer or the importer of the product that first has evidence that a product is dangerous, they should inform the competent national authority and forward a copy of the information to retailers and distributors. A distributor or retailer receiving product hazard information from a manufacturer or importer must inform the authorities unless it knows that the national authority has already been adequately informed by the producer or by another authority.
If it is the retailers or distributors of a product that first have evidence that it is dangerous, they should inform the competent national authority and forward a copy of the information to the manufacturer or importer. A manufacturer or importer receiving product hazard information from a retailer or distributor must complete the information provided by them by passing to the authority(ies) all information they have concerning the dangerous product, in particular identification of other distributors or retailers of the product in order to ensure the product's traceability.
Distributors who have doubts about the safety of a product or whether a dangerous product represents an ‘isolated case’ must transmit to the producer the information they have. They can also contact the competent authorities for advice on how to proceed.
Many hazard situations are recognised by producers only as a result of an aggregated assessment of individual communications received from different retailers or distributors. The producer has the responsibility of assessing the information in order to determine the exact origin of the possible risk and to take the measures which appear to be necessary, including notification of the authorities.
A company should assign responsibility for the information to be notified to someone with sufficient knowledge of the product.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2004/905/annex/division/4/division/4.1 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2004-905/annex/division-4/division-4.1
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.