Chemicals

Steptoe has the largest dedicated EU chemical and environment regulatory practice in Brussels, consistently ranked in the top tier for chemicals and environment work by legal directories. Chambers Europe recently declared Steptoe's environmental capabilities to be "stellar." Our EU team's work concerns chemicals regulation, mainly: REACH, biocides, agrochemicals, food contact materials, classification, labelling, packaging, and nanomaterials, as well as the regulation of chemicals in a range of consumer products such as cosmetics, toys, disinfectants, medical devices, etc.

We have been active in all these areas since the respective EU regimes were first proposed and worked at all stages of their implementation. The size and depth of experience of our EU team enables us to meet the requirements of our clients promptly, whilst ensuring a consistently high quality end product.

We are lawyers, scientists, and policy advisers who serve clients with an in-depth legal, scientific, and technical knowledge of the requirements. Our practice achieved success in proceedings related to EU chemical and environmental regulation before the European courts (Court of Justice of the EU and EU General Court); the Board of Appeal (BoA) of the ECHA; and preliminary references from national courts. Our litigation docket, the largest in Brussels with unparalleled track record of success, includes primarily REACH-related disputes (on substance and dossier evaluation, SVHC listings and restrictions, data sharing, etc.), biocides (data sharing), agrochemicals, and requests for access to confidential business information.

Steptoe's Washington-based US practice interacts daily with the EPA to assist clients in a broad range of issues that arise under US chemical regulations. In particular, our practitioners assist clients with TSCA regulatory and litigation matters, including compliance assistance and enforcement defense. We are at the forefront of the developing issues under TSCA, including the implementation of key elements of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (LCSA), PMN requirements, and implications of non-animal testing requirements under Section 4. We have longstanding experience in nanotechnology regulation in the US, EU, and China; as well as data generation protection. Steptoe has substantial experience in assisting clients on a wide array of issues arising under TSCA, including TSCA compliance audits and self-reporting of TSCA violations; Section 8(a), (d), and (e) recordkeeping and reporting requirements; Section 5 Significant New Use Rules (SNUR); TSCA exemptions; the interface among TSCA, FIFRA, and FFDCA regulation for multi-use products; the use of REACH data under TSCA; TSCA preemption; and CDR Rule.

Steptoe professionals interact daily with the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), regularly working together with the OPP Antimicrobials, Registration, and BioPesticides divisions to guide applications through EPA's application/registration and amendment processes. We assist companies, groups of companies, and trade associations in addressing the broad range of issues that arise under US pesticide regulation, such as FIFRA, the powerful regulatory statute applicable to all pesticides, and the relationship to FFDCA and allowable residue levels of pesticides on certain foods. We also assist clients with re-registrations and registration review, data requirements and data call-ins, data compensation, regulatory development and policy, and enforcement and compliance audits.

Agrochemicals for crop protection and pest management have been a core part of our practice for more than 25 years, and Steptoe is counsel to companies supporting some of the most high profile agrochemical products on the market. We also advise regional and international trade associations operating in the agribusiness sector. The details of the regimes we work in differs in each jurisdiction and our clients turn to us regularly for strategic guidance and support.

Our California team includes dedicated professionals active in San Francisco and Los Angeles where we are able to assist our clients with a broad range of California specific regulations, including California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act (Proposition 65), California's Safer Consumer Products Law (Green Chemistry Initiative), SB-258 Cleaning Products Right to Know Act of 2017, California Organic Products Act (COPA), and California medical waste regulation.

Steptoe advises multinational companies on interpreting and ensuring compliance with the challenging and increasingly high profile Chinese regulatory systems for hazardous chemicals, China REACH, biocides, food safety, and cosmetics. As Chinese regulatory reforms continue, Steptoe combines in-house technical knowledge and deep experience with global regulatory regimes to advise our international clients and to assist our clients in creatively overcoming regulatory and market challenges in China. Steptoe’s presence in Beijing enables us to assist our clients in Chinese regulatory development and implementation.

Steptoe is also working on projects relating to the emerging regulation of antimicrobials and biocides. In both the food contact and non-food contact categories, we are uniquely positioned with the most up to date information on changing regulatory and technical requirements. In the consumer products category, Steptoe can determine if a product requires registration or approval and if it contains restricted or banned substances, register products and ingredients as necessary, and review labeling to ensure compliance with Chinese GHS requirements.