The Deadline for Non-Disclosure Request of Trade Secrets in Korea is Feb. 29, 2016

12 Feb 2016

Companies are required to ACT NOW!

specific chemical companies that operated discharging facilities for air or water pollutants or manufactured retained, stored, used or imported/exported chemical substances were asked to submit statistical data, prescribed under the chemicals control act (the “cca”), on the types of chemical substances handled in korea by the end of october in 2015.

if your company took part in this statistical survey there is some important information to be aware of.

all chemical substance information collected may be eligible for disclosure on the korean information system for chemical safety management (kischem) website. the moe is expected to publically disclose information that was collected from this survey by july 1, 2016. information such as the number of employees, annual storage, usage and sales volume of all hazardous chemical substances handled at the facility in question, and details of statutory violations may be subject to mandatory disclosure. additional details such as product composition may be disclosed upon individual requests by a third party.

only information considered to be trade secret or related to national security may be exempt from this mandatory disclosure, once a confidentiality request (non-disclosure request) has been submitted and approved by the moe.

the scheduled public disclosure of this data can introduce substantial business risk to these companies and their upstream chemical suppliers. to protect trade secret information, companies must submit a non-disclosure request to the chemicals safety division of the moe. the request must be well supported with valid justifications and specific evidence to address certain items by february 29, 2016. the request will be evaluated and the review could take up to 6 months by the review committee.

intertek can help in submitting your company’s non-disclosure request to reduce any potential risk to your business under k-reach. contact our health, environmental & regulatory services experts for more information.