Who Answers the Recall? The EU Responsible Person as a Boardroom Appointment

For a UK manufacturer or brand owner, the EU responsible person can look like a line on a carton: a company name, an address, a contact route. Under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, however, that line represents an operating role with legal duties, recall authority and commercial exposure. The appointment is not a clerical task for the packaging artwork team. It is a board-level decision about who speaks for the product when an EU market surveillance authority asks a question, and who carries the consequences when the answer is unsatisfactory.

What the role actually covers

The GPSR, which has applied since 13 December 2024, requires certain products placed on the EU market to have an EU-established responsible person. The role is often described as a contact point, but the obligations are wider. The responsible person must be able to provide authorities with technical documentation, the EU declaration of conformity where relevant, and information on traceability. It must cooperate with market surveillance authorities on corrective action, including withdrawal or recall. It must also act where a product presents a risk, rather than simply passing messages to a UK head office.

The responsible person can be an EU-established manufacturer, an importer, an authorised representative or a fulfilment service provider. For a UK brand selling through an EU distributor, the importer may already occupy that position. For a UK business selling direct to EU consumers through an online marketplace or its own site, the appointment is more deliberate. The name and contact details must accompany the product, and for distance sales they must be visible in the online listing. A postal address that cannot answer a regulator is not a responsible person in any meaningful sense.

Where liability and recall exposure sit

The responsible person's duties sit alongside, not instead of, product liability and contractual risk. Appointment does not automatically transfer every legal exposure away from the UK manufacturer. It does create a party that EU authorities can contact, question and pursue for cooperation. If a product is unsafe, the practical sequence may be a request for information, a demand for corrective action, and then a recall or withdrawal. Each step carries cost: logistics, customer communication, disposal, lost margin, management time and potential penalties under national law.

That is why the appointment has commercial weight. A responsible person that lacks the technical file cannot answer quickly. One that lacks authority to stop sales may wait for instructions while the regulator escalates. One that is also a commercial competitor or a distributor with its own priorities may face a conflict. Recall costs can be disputed long after the event. Indemnities are only as good as the entity giving them, and regulatory enforcement may not wait for a contractual argument to be resolved.

Boards should therefore ask who can trigger a recall, who pays for it, who speaks to the authority, and how the UK parent ensures the responsible person has the documents and authority to act. These are governance questions, not procurement details.

The due-diligence questions

Before a name goes on the packaging in 2026, the board should test the appointment against a short but searching set of questions.

• Is the entity established in the EU and able to evidence legal capacity to act for the relevant product lines and SKUs?
• Will it hold the technical file, risk assessment, test reports and declaration of conformity, and can it produce them within an authority's deadline?
• What is the service level for authority requests, and who escalates an issue to the UK board?
• Does it have authority to initiate corrective action, including stopping sales, without waiting for a UK decision?
• Who bears recall, withdrawal, disposal and communication costs, and how is that obligation secured through insurance, a parent guarantee or a bond?
• Does the entity subcontract any part of the role, and who remains liable if it does?
• What audit rights, reporting duties and record-keeping obligations are in the contract?
• How does the appointment end, and how will the UK business transition to a new responsible person without a gap in coverage?
• Are there conflicts with the entity's role as distributor, importer or marketplace operator?
• Has the board received a written opinion on the regulatory and contractual allocation of risk?

From appointment to governance

The strongest appointments are treated as critical supplier relationships. The contract should define the scope of authority, the documents to be held, response times, cooperation duties, indemnities, insurance, confidentiality, data protection and termination. The board should minute the decision, name the executive owner and review the arrangement annually. Packaging and online listings should be checked against the appointed entity's details. If the responsible person changes, the transition should be planned before the old name is removed.

The GPSR has shifted the conversation from whether a name appears on the label to whether the organisation behind that name can act. For UK boards, the question is not simply which EU company will lend an address. It is which EU entity will answer the recall, hold the file and carry the operational burden when a regulator calls. That is a decision for the board, not the artwork studio.