- customs authorities
means customs authorities as defined in Article 5, point (1), of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;
- due diligence in relation to forced labour
means efforts by economic operators to implement mandatory requirements, voluntary guidelines, recommendations or practices to identify, prevent, mitigate or bring to an end the use of forced labour with respect to products that are to be placed or to be made available on the Union market or to be exported;
- economic operator
means any natural or legal person or association of persons placing or making available products on the Union market or exporting products;
- end user
means any natural or legal person residing or established in the Union to whom a product has been made available either as a consumer outside of any trade, business, craft or profession or as a professional end user in the course of its industrial or professional activities;
- export
means the procedure laid down in Article 269 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013.
- exporter
means an exporter as defined in Article 1, point (19), of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446;
- forced labour
means forced or compulsory labour as defined in Article 2 of ILO Convention No 29, including forced child labour;
- forced labour imposed by state authorities
means the use of forced labour as described in Article 1 of ILO Convention No 105;
- importer
means any natural or legal person or association of persons established within the Union who places a product from a third country on the Union market;
- lead competent authority
means the authority responsible, pursuant to Article 15, for assessing submissions of information, conducting investigations, and taking decisions, namely a Member State competent authority or the Commission;
- making available on the market
means any supply of a product for distribution, consumption or use on the Union market in the course of a commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge;
- manufacturer
means any natural or legal person who manufactures a product or has a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under its name or trademark;
- placing on the market
means the first making available of a product on the Union market;
- producer
means the producer of agricultural products as referred to in Article 38(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, or the producer of raw materials;
- product
means any item that can be valued in money and is capable, as such, of being the subject of commercial transactions, whether it is extracted, harvested, produced or manufactured;
- product made with forced labour
means a product for which forced labour has been used in whole or in part at any stage of its extraction, harvest, production or manufacture, including in the working or processing related to a product at any stage of its supply chain;
- product supplier
means any natural or legal person or association of persons in the supply chain who extracts, harvests, produces or manufactures a product in whole or in part, or intervenes in the working or processing related to a product at any stage of its supply chain, as a manufacturer or in any other capacity;
- products entering the Union market
means products from third countries intended to be placed on the Union market or intended for private use or consumption within the customs territory of the Union and to be placed under the customs procedure ‘release for free circulation’;
- products leaving the Union market
means products to be placed under the customs procedure ‘export’;
- release for free circulation
means the procedure laid down in Article 201 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;
- substantiated concern
means a reasonable indication based on objective, factual and verifiable information for the Commission or competent authorities to suspect that it is likely that a product was made with forced labour;
- supply chain
means the system of activities, processes and actors involved at all stages upstream of a product being made available on the market, namely the extraction, harvesting, production and manufacturing of a product in whole or in part, including in the working or processing related to the product at any of those stages;