The CE mark is being monitored, although not equally by all countries. One company that I heard of shipped equipment into France without a CE mark. The equipment was stopped at the border and the manufacturer was asked if they wanted to return the equipment to the US or sign a contract with the local government to bring it into compliance. The EMC mark is being enthusiastically enforced by Germany and France as well. There have been some comments in this forum regarding a Notified Body's right to pull equipment off the shelf and test for compliance instead of waiting for a complaint to be filed.
Regardless of whether you get "caught" shipping unmarked or non-compliant product, the CE Directives are still laws that must be complied with, and they can come back to haunt you years later. If you ship non-compliant equipment today and three years from now it is discovered, your company can be forced to retro-fit or pay a fine on all non-compliant equipment that was put on the market. I personally am aware of some companies that were fined due to non-compliance. Patty Elliot TUV Rheinland of North America ell...@tuv.com Personal opinions, not corporate --------------------------------------------------------- At 11:07 AM 2/21/97 MST, Brian Kunde wrote: > I hear a very disturbing subject being openly discussed among several > of my European contacts. Distributors in Europe are saying that the > CE marking is a joke. That many companies (European Companies are > mentioned most often) are simply applying the CE marking to their > products without testing. Some say that many companies were initially > forced to do this because of the time and cost of testing and > redesign, but since there is very little checking going on the risk is > "Cost Effective". > > IS THIS TRUE? > > Has anyone heard of specific situations where a company or person has > been fined or jailed for fraudulently placing the CE marking on > non-compliant equipment? What is the penalty for non-compliance? What > is the penalty for fraud? Is anyone checking? Is anyone getting in > trouble? > > I have been asked to obtain strong evidence to counter this opinion. > More or less to "put the fear of God" into distributors and reassure > our marketing and sales force that delaying product to market for the > CE mark is the right thing to do. > > Can you help? Please post or email me anything you can. > > Thanks, > > Brian Kunde > brian_ku...@leco.com > >
