Consumer ISG - Holiday Guide 2021 - Flipbook - Page 9
The Hogan Lovells Holiday Guide 2021
Focus on China:
China clamps down
on illegal personal care
and cosmetic products
Zhen (Katie) Feng and Yu-An Chang, Shanghai
China’s National Medical Product Administration
(“NMPA”) – the administrative body responsible
for regulating pharmaceuticals, medical devices
and cosmetics – has recently launched a campaign
to enforce the Regulation on the Supervision and
Administration of Cosmetics. This campaign is the
first of its kind and scale since the Regulation came
into force on 1 January 2021. During the one-year
period ending in October 2022, the NMPA’s local
offices across China will crack down on non-compliant
cosmetic products, focusing on e-commerce sales.
Regulatory compliance will no doubt become even
more important in this field. The campaign also
means that brand owners facing challenges from noncompliant products, including parallel imports, will be
better placed to seek regulatory intervention against
such products during the course of the campaign.
The NPA’s enforcement campaign focuses on three
key areas.
Online sales of unregistered products
The NMPA’s local offices will mainly crack down
on online sales of unregistered products, products
using falsified or third party product registrations,
and blacklisted products.
Online sales of products with exaggerated
or misleading statements
The NMPA’s campaign also tackles misleading
statements and efficacy claims, including products
claimed to contain ingredients such as stem cells,
peeling acid, ‘cosmeceuticals’ or elements implicating
medical effects. All product and labelling information
used must be complete, true and consistent
with the product registration information.
Cosmetics sold online containing illegal
substances that may endanger human health
The NMPA’s campaign also targets products that contain
prohibited or restricted ingredients, or ingredients of an
excessive level, which may endanger human health. In
particular, products intended for children and products
for special-use purposes such as freckles and skin
whitening will be the key area of focus for enforcement.
In conclusion, businesses will need to re-assess the
compliance of their cosmetic products and determine
whether their products may become the target of such
enforcement initiatives. The NMPA also emphasizes
responsibilities for e-commerce platform operators,
including real-name registration of distributors, having
dedicated personnel to mechanisms to ensure compliance.
Finally, it is not uncommon to see parallel imported
personal care and cosmetic products being offered
with no product registration information, or with
the brand owner’s product registration information,
but without the brand owner’s authorization, or
with incomplete product and labelling information.
With the enforcement campaign now in place, brand
owners will now also have better chance to ensure
that products offered under its marks by third parties
remain compliant and cause no harm to its brand.
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