Alison Newstead, specialist legal advisor at Shook Hardy & Bacon, discusses steps toy companies can take to manage potential compliance issues.

Toy manufacturers work tirelessly to ensure that their products are safe. There are occasions, however, when a potential compliance issue arises: maybe a third party contractor has not kept to specification or perhaps the issue is not with your own product, but actually a very convincing counterfeit. Whatever the issue, if it raises questions within the business, by customers, or attracts the attention of a regulator, you need to be in the best position to respond.

Alison Newstead, specialist legal advisor in Product Safety, Product Liability and Risk partner at Shook Hardy & Bacon, outlines six simple steps you can take to ensure your response is quick and effective. Investing time in preparing now will mean that you can react quickly, and get back to what your company does best; producing amazing toys.

These steps include identifying a core response team, forming a traceability plan and knowing legal notification obligations.

Compliance and safety are ingrained in the toy industry. Gathering together all of the good practices that are already being undertaken by your business will make sure that its dedication and commitment in bringing safe toys to market can be demonstrated when it counts most.

To read the full article, which appeared in the March edition of Toy World, click here.

Alison can be contacted at anewstead@shb.com.