On February 6, 2015, Shin & Kim and AMCHAM jointly held a seminar entitled “Implementation of K-REACH: Key Practical Issues”. The purpose of the seminar was to provide useful information regarding the Enforcement Decrees and Rules of the Act on Registration, Evaluation, etc. of Chemicals (the “Act”), which entered into force as of January 2015.

The seminar began with the introductory presentation of the Ministry of Environment on the main points of the Enforcement Decrees and Enforcement Rules of the Act, and an attorney of Mayer Brown, a European law firm, who specializes in EU-Reach, gave a presentation on “K-REACH in An International Perspective”. Also in the seminar, Attorney Hyun-Ah Kim of the Environment Team at Shin & Kim gave a presentation focused on: (i) the duty to provide information and the protection of confidential information of companies under the Act, (ii) the duty to provide information to competent government agencies and the data protection scheme under the Act, and (iii) the duty to provide information between private persons within the supply chain of chemical substances, as well as exceptional cases where trade secrets are allowed to be disclosed and other notable matters. 

 
The seminar’s attendance demonstrated the high motivation of companies to know more about the Act. More than 70 officers and employees of AMCHAM member and non-member companies attended the seminar, and the panel discussion and Q&A sessions after the presentations, which included presenters and representatives of Korea Chemicals Management Association on the panel, continued for more than one hour.