§4.3 Authorised representatives

An authorised representative is a natural or legal person established in the EU that has received a written mandate from a manufacturer to act on its behalf in relation to specified tasks with regard to the manufacturer's obligations under the relevant Union harmonisation legislation or under the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (Article 3 of the Regulation). If a manufacturer wants an authorised representative to act as the economic operator referred to in Article 4, it must ensure that the mandate includes all the tasks listed in Article 4(3). The authorised representative must have the appropriate means to be able to fulfil its tasks (Article 5(3) of the Regulation). Sector-specific legislation often allows for the appointment of an authorised representative (39). Where that option is taken up, it generally requires that the representative be mandated to do at least the following: — keep the declaration of conformity/performance and the technical documentation at the disposal of the national market surveillance authorities for a specified period (in general 10 years in the case of the sector-specific legislation covered by Article 4), — following a reasoned request, provide a competent national authority with all the information and documentation needed to demonstrate the conformity of a product, and — cooperate with the competent national authorities, at their request, on any action to eliminate the risks posed by products (40) covered by its mandate. Exceptions to this can be found in the legislation on outdoor noise, machinery and ecodesign, under which the authorised representative has different tasks, closer to those of the manufacturer. Where a manufacturer has appointed an authorised representative under sector-specific legislation and wants it to act as the economic operator referred to in Article 4, it will therefore have to review its mandate to ensure that it includes all the tasks listed in Article 4(3). In particular, it may have to add tasks to be performed where the representative has reason to believe that a product presents a risk. Similarly, where a manufacturer is planning to appoint an authorised representative with a view to facilitating compliance with Article 4, and where it wants to appoint an authorised representative within the framework of the sector-specific legislation, it will have to check the applicable sector-specific legislation for possible tasks in addition to those required by Article 4. In addition to the tasks listed in Article 4(3), the authorised representative must also, on request, provide a market surveillance authority with a copy of its mandate in an EU language determined by the authority (Article 5(2) of the Regulation). The legislation on outdoor noise, machinery and construction products requires that the authorised representative’s name and contact details be indicated in the declaration of conformity/performance (41) that has to accompany these products (42). In many other sectors, the legislation requires the manufacturer to indicate a contact address on or with the product; that address could be that of the authorised representative. Where the name and contact details of an authorised representative who is the economic operator referred to in Article 4 are not yet indicated on or with the product, the economic operator placing the product on the EU market should make sure these are added as required (for a smoother process, it could ask the manufacturer to do this systematically).

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07