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Market surveillance

Market surveillance aims to ensure safety, health and consumer protection as well as fair competition between companies.

Only safe products are allowed to be placed on the market. In spite of this dangerous products are regularly discovered. Market surveillance means that public authorities inspect that products made available on the market fulfil all legal requirements, including that they are correctly marked and tested. The responsible authority shall take measures against economic operators whose products do not fulfil the requirements. Corrective measures can include sales ban, withdrawal of products from the market or recall from end users.

Market surveillance is performed as planned inspections at the premises of the manufacturer, importer, distributor or retailer or as reactions to reported accidents, complaints from the public or warnings issued by public authorities in other countries. Market surveillance does not include pre-market inspection or inspection of products in use.

Considering the speed of product development and the considerable amount of products that are made available on the market, there is no possibility to inspect all products. Market surveillance is therefore performed as random inspection after risk assessment.

In Sweden, the responsibility for market surveillance is with few exceptions placed with the regulatory authorities. Swedac is responsible for the coordination of the Swedish market surveillance. This coordination is mainly organised through the Market Surveillance Council, which consists of representatives from different authorities.

Swedac works, nationally and internationally, for enhanced knowledge of and consistent interpretation and application of market surveillance rules and principles.

Requirements on market surveillance are found in a number of legal acts, i.e. EU Regulation 765/2008 on accreditation and market surveillance, the Swedish Ordinance on Market Surveillance of Products (2005:893), the Act (2004:451) on Product Safety, which implements EU Directive 2001/95/EC on General Product Safety, and sectoral legislation.


For more information, please contact:

Anna Stattin, Market Surveillance Coordinator

Updated/Reviewed: 2011-04-04 17:53