Tim

Complicity of large multi-nationals in the lead ban would have been
effected through their trade associations, AEA, etc.  Some evidence
supports your hypothesis.  In the early years, 1998 to 2002, AEA,
Orgalime,TUV, and others were actively lobbying against the lead ban.
Much of the activity was documented by James Hayward of AMD.  Then, around
2002, that activity ceased.  Most of what we heard was compliance.

I think there may have been many factors.  One was concern with WEEE.  Its
financial impact was deemed even worse than RoHS lead ban because of the
cost of take-back.  So that concern was always diversionary from lobbying
against RoHS.

Now we see that the RoHS exemption process itself is being aborted.
Blanket rejections have become the rule, impacting applications by Swatch
and Xilinx based on unreliability of the SAC alloys.

Stavros Dimas, Environmental Commissioner, has stated that the ultimate
judgment will be that of the European Court of Justice.  Liability issues,
generated by equipment failures of lead-free solder and its manufauring
process stresses, will force the entire isssue into the courts.  I do not
believe that there will be a viable defense for the lead ban in any court.

Harvey Miller
Fabfile Online





--- Tim McGrady <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There are other possible scenarios concerning future RoHS news:
>
> Have any of you ever considered what would happen if a small company
> gets nailed by the EU or if they are enjoined into a suit by a big
> multi-national electronics corporation after the big boy was hit with
> an infraction?  Think insurance.  The big multi-nationals are self-
> insured, i.e., they can take a big hit and keep on doing business.  But
> small companies are most often insured by an outside company.  If they
> get hit with a big sum after a successful "due diligence" argument by
> the big corporate lawyers, their insurance company will have to pay.
> But because the small company took on huge liability when they sent a
> materials declaration to the big multi-national, the insurance comapny
> will drop them like a stone.  No more small business - Bye Bye! And I'm
> sure the insurance industry will catch wind of the issue and will
> either start raising premiums on small businesses and/or they will
> demand that any declarations of compliance with RoHS requirements can
> pass legal muster
> .  Right now, the act of filling out a materials declaration, even
> under duress, is fraught with legal jeopardy.  Why?  Because the proper
> system of checks and balances is not in place.  Many thousands, maybe
> millions of test reports have been issued without proper referencing of
> methods and without the proper validation - in other words, the proper
> standards have not been in place.  Much of the data on those reports is
> WORTHLESS and in fact could lead the user into a false sense of
> security - yes, I'm talking about false negative test results.  If you
> get a report that says "Not Detected" for everything under the sun,
> that's exactly what a EEE parts manufacturer (and their customers) want
> to hear.  But if the report was in error, WHICH IS HIGHLY LIKELY, you
> could be sending non-compliant material to the EU market.
>
> And it's not only test method standards that are missing.  Standard
> material specifications are also missing.  Can you buy compliant
> materials to standard material specifications?  Perhaps in a few cases,
> but it would be much better to be able to buy every commodity to a
> compliant specification.  The testing of parts and components, which
> number in the billions or even trillions, would then be minimized.  In
> all, the world's supply chains could have saved many billions of
> dollars had the proper standards been in place.  But the number of
> standards required to take care of the sweeping scope of regulations
> such as RoHS number in the thousands!
>
> There is an agreement in the WTO called the Agreement on Technical
> Barriers to Trade (TBT).  Many people say that it is a weak document -
> that it is full of lawyer-speak and wiggle words that allow violators
> of the agreement to survive challenges unscathed.  But I think it is an
> excuse used by those who cut deals behind closed doors and render the
> TBT useless.  I think if the US Trade Representative or other country's
> trade representatives brought the EU up on TBT violations in the WTO,
> we could have at the very least delayed RoHS by many years.  We could
> have forced the EU to "take a full part" in the development of the
> necessary (thousands of) standards as required by the TBT.  But we
> didn't.  Why not?
>
> Now I have a little surprise for you (if you've managed to read this
> far): I believe the main reason the USTR did not take action against
> the EU is that THEY WERE ASKED NOT TO by the big multi-national
> electronic corporations!  Why would the big boys do that?  For several
> reasons, really: 1) They were scared by what happened to Sony in 2001;
> 2) they felt any action against the EU would be met with a media
> barrage claiming that the electronics industry giants are poisoning
> everyone (particularly children!); and they wanted to control standards
> development for fear that the EU would mess it up (as if the
> electronics multi-nationals could do better!).  I believe they felt
> that it would be much better to work with the EU than against them.  So
> I think they cut a deal - in exchange for cooperating with the EU on
> RoHS, they would have easy access to the Commission for lobbying
> exemptions, they would develop the test standard (as if one standard
> would work) and perhaps there were s
> everal other conditions.  I believe that the reason RoHS went forward
> without much pushback was because the multi-nationals made one of the
> biggest mistakes in the history of manufacturing.  It was just plain
> dumb. So it's my opinion that you have the big guys to thank along with
> the EU.
>
>
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