Aggrieved companies and trade groups have already mounted legal actions against the EU’s strict health claim laws – they are in process – but the regulation’s workings could face fresh challenge from governments signed up to the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to a Brussels-based legal expert.
Emmanuel Saurat, an associate in the Brussels office of Sidley Austin, told a conference in the EU capital last week that the European Union’s nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) was at odds with WTO free trade principles.
According to those principles and agreements, the NHCR may restrict commercial free speech, trade between EU and non-EU countries as well as the use of trade marks.
Speaking to us after his presentation, Saurat spoke of NHCR prohibitions that may provoke actions by the governments that have signed up to the WTO.
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