K-OSHA amendment in place – Find out more about the new MSDS submission rules in Korea
On January 16, 2021 the amendment of the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Act (K-OSHA) was implemented. With this amendment, the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL) aims to gain better control on the information provided in the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and therefore sets new obligations for chemical manufacturers and importers. Besides changes on the submission process of MSDS, the K-OSHA amendment also defines new rules on the disclosure of composition information and the “Trade Secret” issue. For non-Korean manufacturers exporting chemicals to Korea, the Only Representative (OR) system was also adopted into the legislation to take over the disclosure and MSDS submission responsibility in order to protect confidential information. OR eligibility under K-OSHA is the same as under K-REACH.