These days the market is flooded with frustrated foreign trade participants whose compliance assessment documents have been moved to the archival part of the register long before their expiration date. This is because they applied for certificates and declarations to certification agencies that had been regularly violating conformity assessment regulations and failed to properly respond to fix-it tickets from the Federal Service for Accreditation (FSA).

Even if a certain foreign trade participant obtained a certificate or declaration in accordance with all requirements of the technical regulations, it does not guard their document against being moved to the archival part of the register. The reason lies in the fact that the certification procedure involves a lot of steps and nuances such as concluding a conformity assessment agreement, product sampling, sample testing, preparing a factory inspection certificate, etc. Should a certification agency issue at least one document without following these requirements, all its certificates and declarations fall under the risk of being annulled in case of an FSA’s inspection.

If a foreign trade participant is sure to have complied with all the applicable legislation, they can try and reinstate their certificate or declaration from the archival part of the register. To do this, they need to apply to the FSA for reinstatement and provide a set of documents proving that all compliance assessment requirements have been followed. These documents are:

1. Signed application for registering the certificate or declaration;
2. Datasheet;
3. User’s manual;
4. Technical specifications (for Russian manufacturers);
5. Sampling certificate;
6. Factory inspection certificate (when obtaining certificates for mass production);
7. Customs declaration for import of test sample;
8. Letter from an accredited certification agency (laboratory) confirming its intentions to do the testing;
9. Test report.

If there was not any of the mentioned documents throughout the certification procedure, it will be hardly possible to reinstate the certificate or declaration from the archival part of the register—one will have to obtain a new document at their expense. Therefore, we strongly advice you to keep for the whole validity period of certificates and declarations the complete set of documents that was used and handed to the applicant during their obtainment.

In April this year the Russian government enacted a decree that brought significant changes to the procedure for inspecting certification agencies. It allowed the FSA to issue fix-tickets for canceling operations of fraudulent certification agencies whose accreditation has been lifted. Even if the certification agency does not respond to the fix-tickets, the FSA will move the certificates and declarations that were issued with violation of current legislation to the archival part of the register. 

If you still have any questions, contact us by phone or email. Our experts know all nuances of conformity assessment procedure and are ready to help you choose the most suitable certification scheme in no time at an affordable price.