ABOUT ERPA

We aim to protect the safety of  cosmetic products users in Europe by promoting high standards of services and professional conduct among European Responsible Persons.

Message from the Chairman

ERPA, the European cosmetics Responsible Person Association was created by Obelis Responsible Person Center (Belgium) and Medical Device Safety Service (Germany) on January 18th 2011. The association is strategically located in the heart of Europe – Brussels, Belgium.
The vision of the association is to promote high standards of services and professionalism among the European Responsible Persons with the final aim of encouraging safe cosmetic products on the European market.
As such, ERPA gathers under the same roof the main compliance operators – Responsible Persons, Safety Assessors, REACh Only Representatives, Laboratories, GMP auditors and other associations. By bringing these professionals together, we strive to create a positive round table open for discussing, developing and promoting the fundamental aspects of having only safe cosmetic products on the European market.
Under the ERPA platform, we aim at creating working guidelines of the Responsible Person profession, in view of clarifying the roles and obligations entailed by this new profession as well as the roles and obligations of all the other compliance operators in this industry.

Mr. Gideon Elkayam
ERPA Chairman

Mission statement

  • ERPA seeks to generate awareness of the European Responsible Person roles and obligations.
  • ERPA seeks to encourage high standard of professional conduct and competence among the European Responsible Persons.
  • ERPA seeks to create guidelines of cooperation among the compliance operators involved in the regulatory affairs of cosmetic products.

Objectives

  • To create Good Working Practices guidelines of the European Responsible Person profession.
  • To be an active stakeholder in the regulatory and legislative decision making process affecting the European Responsible Person profession.
  • To create cooperation guidelines among the Responsible Person, Safety Assessor, Manufacturer and other compliance operators.

Code of conduct

All members of ERPA are committed to providing a high quality of service to their clients and maintaining high ethical standards. To this purpose, the following Code of Conduct has been established to be followed by the ERPA members.

  • Provide competent professional services to clients.
  • Be incorporated as a legal person and assume all the legal responsibilities that this entails.
  • Employ adequate and competent staff with expertise and knowledge of European legal and regulatory requirements concerning cosmetics.
  • Refrain from and seek to avoid conflicts of interest of business or financial nature.
  • Contract for sufficient liability insurance pertaining to Responsible Person activities, in order to protect their clients and themselves.
  • Maintain good standards of confidentiality with regard to third parties.
  • Warn clients of any actual or potential regulatory and legal violations that may result from their activities or plans.
  • Seek and follow further education in areas relevant to Responsible Person as well as maintain awareness of relevant developments.
  • Maintain good relationships with Competent Authorities, and be responsive to their enquiries.

Additionally, all members do jointly:

  • Advocate the interests of the Responsible Persons and of their clients within the European Economic Area to the European Commission, authorities of the Member States and other interested parties.
  • Contribute to the development of the image and activities of ERPA.