minimising the Union’s contribution to deforestation and forest degradation worldwide, and thereby contributing to a reduction in global deforestation;

reducing the Union’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global biodiversity loss.

the relevant products are non-compliant;

the exercise of due diligence has revealed a non-negligible risk that the relevant products are non-compliant;

the operator was unable to fulfil the obligations referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2.

the name, registered trade name or registered trade mark, the postal address, the email address and, if available, a web address of the operators or the traders who have supplied the relevant products to them, as well as the reference numbers of the due diligence statements associated to those products;

the name, registered trade name or registered trade mark, the postal address, the email address and, if available, a web address of the operators or the traders to whom they have supplied the relevant products.

the collection of information, data and documents needed to fulfil the requirements set out in Article 9;

risk assessment measures as referred to in Article 10;

risk mitigation measures as referred to in Article 11.

a description, including the trade name and type of the relevant products as well as, in the case of relevant products that contain or have been made using wood, the common name of the species and their full scientific name; the product description shall include the list of relevant commodities or relevant products contained therein or used to make those products;

the quantity of the relevant products; for relevant products entering or leaving the market, the quantity is to be expressed in kilograms of net mass and, where applicable, in the supplementary unit set out in Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 ( 2 ) against the indicated Harmonised System code, or, in all other cases, the quantity is to be expressed in net mass or, where applicable, volume or number of items; a supplementary unit is applicable where it is defined consistently for all possible subheadings under the Harmonised System code referred to in the due diligence statement;

the country of production and, where relevant, parts thereof;

the geolocation of all plots of land where the relevant commodities that the relevant product contains, or has been made using, were produced, as well as the date or time range of production; where a relevant product contains or has been made with relevant commodities produced on different plots of land, the geolocation of all different plots of land shall be included; any deforestation or forest degradation on the given plots of land shall automatically disqualify all relevant commodities and relevant products from those plots of land from being placed or made available on the market or exported; for relevant products that contain or have been made using cattle, and for such relevant products that have been fed with relevant products, the geolocation shall refer to all the establishments where the cattle were kept; for all other relevant products of Annex I, the geolocation shall refer to the plots of land;

the name, postal address and email address of any business or person from whom they have been supplied with the relevant products;

the name, postal address and email address of any business, operator or trader to whom the relevant products have been supplied;

adequately conclusive and verifiable information that the relevant products are deforestation-free;

adequately conclusive and verifiable information that the relevant commodities have been produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production, including any arrangement conferring the right to use the respective area for the purposes of the production of the relevant commodity.

the assignment of risk to the relevant country of production or parts thereof in accordance with Article 29;

the presence of forests in the country of production or parts thereof;

the presence of indigenous peoples in the country of production or parts thereof;

the consultation and cooperation in good faith with indigenous peoples in the country of production or parts thereof;

the existence of duly reasoned claims by indigenous peoples based on objective and verifiable information regarding the use or ownership of the area used for the purpose of producing the relevant commodity;

prevalence of deforestation or forest degradation in the country of production or parts thereof;

the source, reliability, validity, and links to other available documentation of the information referred to in Article 9(1);

concerns in relation to the country of production and origin or parts thereof, such as level of corruption, prevalence of document and data falsification, lack of law enforcement, violations of international human rights, armed conflict or presence of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council or the Council of the European Union;

the complexity of the relevant supply chain and the stage of processing of the relevant products, in particular difficulties in connecting relevant products to the plot of land where the relevant commodities were produced;

the risk of circumvention of this Regulation or of mixing with relevant products of unknown origin or produced in areas where deforestation or forest degradation has occurred or is occurring;

conclusions of the meetings of the Commission expert groups supporting the implementation of this Regulation, as published in the Commission’s expert group register;

substantiated concerns submitted under Article 31, and information on the history of non-compliance of operators or traders along the relevant supply chain with this Regulation;

any information that would point to a risk that the relevant products are non-compliant;

complementary information on compliance with this Regulation, which may include information supplied by certification or other third-party verified schemes, including voluntary schemes recognised by the Commission under Article 30(5) of Directive(EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 3 ), provided that the information meets the requirements set out in Article 9 of this Regulation.

requiring additional information, data or documents;

carrying out independent surveys or audits;

taking other measures pertaining to information requirements set out in Article 9.

model risk management practices, reporting, record-keeping, internal control and compliance management, including the appointment of a compliance officer at management level for non-SME operators;

an independent audit function to check the internal policies, controls and procedures referred to in point (a) for all non-SME operators.

a summary of the information referred to in Article 9(1), points (a), (b) and (c);

the conclusions of the risk assessment carried out pursuant to Article 10 and measures undertaken pursuant to Article 11 and a description of the information and evidence obtained and used to assess the risk;

where applicable, a description of the process of consultation of indigenous peoples, local communities and other customary tenure rights holders or of the civil society organisations that are present in the area of production of the relevant commodities and relevant products.

national risk criteria, established in accordance with paragraph 3, for the purpose of determining the checks that are necessary, which build upon any indicative risk criteria at Union level established by the Commission in accordance with paragraph 4, and systematically include risk criteria in relation to countries or parts thereof classified as high risk;

the selection of operators and traders to be checked; that selection is to be based on the national risk criteria referred to in point (a), using, inter alia, information contained in the information system referred to in Article 33 and electronic data-processing techniques; for each operator or trader to be checked, competent authorities may identify specific due diligence statements to be checked.

take immediate interim measures under Article 23 to suspend the placing or making available of those relevant products on the market; or

once the electronic interface referred to in Article 28(1) is in place, in the case of relevant products entering or leaving the market, require customs authorities to suspend the release for free circulation or export of those relevant products under Article 26(7).

examination of their due diligence system, including risk assessment and risk mitigation procedures, and of documentation and records that demonstrate the proper functioning of the due diligence system;

examination of documentation and records that demonstrate that a specific relevant product that the operator has placed or intends to place on the market or intends to export or that the non-SME trader has made available or intends to make available on the market complies with this Regulation, including, when applicable, through risk mitigation measures, as well as examination of the relevant due diligence statements.

on-the-ground examination of relevant commodities or of the relevant products with a view to ascertaining their correspondence with the documentation used for exercising due diligence;

examination of corrective measures taken under Article 24;

any technical and scientific means adequate to determine the species or the exact place where the relevant commodity or relevant product was produced, including anatomical, chemical or DNA analysis;

any technical and scientific means adequate to determine whether the relevant products are deforestation-free, including Earth observation data such as from the Copernicus programme and tools or from other publicly or privately available relevant sources; and

spot checks, including field audits, including where appropriate in third countries, provided that such third countries agree, through cooperation with the administrative authorities of those third countries.

the plans of checks and the risk criteria on which those plans were based;

the number and the results of the checks carried out on operators, non-SME traders and other traders in relation to the total number of operators, non-SME traders and other traders, including the types of non-compliance identified;

the quantity of relevant products checked in relation to the total quantity of relevant products placed on the market or exported and the countries of production; for relevant products entering or leaving the market, the quantity is to be expressed in kilograms of net mass and, where applicable, in the supplementary unit set out in Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 against the indicated Harmonised System code, or, in all other cases, the quantity is to be expressed in net mass or, where applicable, volume or number of items; a supplementary unit is applicable where it is defined consistently for all possible subheadings under the Harmonised System code referred to in the due diligence statement;

in cases of non-compliance, the corrective action taken in accordance with Article 24 and penalties imposed in accordance with Article 25;

the percentage of checks carried out with prior warnings pursuant to Article 16(13), the use of which shall be justified by the competent authorities in their check reports.

rectifying any formal non-compliance, in particular with the requirements of Chapter 2;

preventing the relevant product from being placed or made available on the market or exported;

withdrawing or recalling the relevant product immediately;

donating the relevant product to charitable or public interest purposes or, if that is not possible, disposing of it in accordance with Union law on waste management.

fines proportionate to the environmental damage and the value of the relevant commodities or relevant products concerned, calculating the level of such fines in such way as to ensure that they effectively deprive those responsible of the economic benefits derived from their infringements, and gradually increasing the level of such fines for repeated infringements; in the case of a legal person, the maximum amount of such a fine shall be at least 4 % of the operator’s or trader’s total annual Union-wide turnover in the financial year preceding the fining decision, calculated in accordance with the calculation of aggregate turnover for undertakings laid down in Article 5(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 ( 6 ), and shall be increased, where necessary, to exceed the potential economic benefit gained;

confiscation of the relevant products concerned from the operator and/or trader;

confiscation of revenues gained by the operator and/or trader from a transaction with the relevant products concerned;

temporary exclusion for a maximum period of 12 months from public procurement processes and from access to public funding, including tendering procedures, grants and concessions;

temporary prohibition from placing or making available on the market or exporting relevant commodities and relevant products, in the event of a serious infringement or of repeated infringements;

prohibition from exercising the simplified due diligence set out in Article 13 in the event of a serious infringement or of repeated infringements.

the name of the legal person;

the date of the final judgment;

a summary of the activities for which the legal person was found to have infringed this Regulation; and

the nature and, where financial, the amount of the penalty imposed.

until the electronic interface referred to in Article 28(1) is in place, paragraphs 6 to 9 of this Article shall not apply, and customs authorities shall exchange information and cooperate with competent authorities in accordance with Article 27, and, where necessary, shall take into account such exchange of information and cooperation on allowing relevant products to be released for free circulation or exported;

once the electronic interface referred to in Article 28(1) is in place, paragraphs 6 to 9 of this Article shall apply, and notifications and requests under paragraphs 6 to 9 of this Article shall take place by means of that electronic interface.

the status referred to in paragraph 6 of this Article does not indicate that the relevant product has been identified, pursuant to Article 17(2), as requiring to be checked before it is placed or made available on the market or exported;

the release for free circulation or export has been suspended in accordance with paragraph 7 of this Article, and the competent authorities have not requested to maintain the suspension in accordance with Article 17(3);

the release for free circulation or export has been suspended in accordance with paragraph 7 and the competent authorities have notified customs authorities that the suspension of the release for free circulation or export of the relevant products can be lifted.

between customs authorities in accordance with Article 46(5) of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

between customs authorities and the Commission in accordance with Article 47(2) of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

between customs authorities and competent authorities, including competent authorities of other Member States, in accordance with Article 47(2) of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013.

operators and traders to comply with the obligation to submit the due diligence statement of a relevant commodity or relevant product pursuant to Article 4 of this Regulation, by making it available through the national single window environment for customs referred to in Article 8 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2399 and receive feedback thereon from competent authorities; and

the transmission of that due diligence statement to the information system referred to in Article 33.

‘high risk’ refers to countries or parts thereof, for which the assessment referred to in paragraph 3 results in the identification of a high risk of producing in such countries or in parts thereof, relevant commodities for which the relevant products do not comply with Article 3, point (a);

‘low risk’ refers to countries or parts thereof, for which the assessment referred to in paragraph 3 concludes that there is sufficient assurance that instances of producing in such countries or in parts thereof, relevant commodities for which the relevant products do not comply with Article 3, point (a), are exceptional;

‘standard risk’ refers to countries or parts thereof which do not fall in either the category ‘high risk’ or the category ‘low risk’.

rate of deforestation and forest degradation;

rate of expansion of agriculture land for relevant commodities;

production trends of relevant commodities and of relevant products.

information submitted by the country concerned, regional authorities concerned, operators, NGOs and third parties, including indigenous peoples, local communities and civil society organisations, with regard to the effective covering of emissions and removals from agriculture, forestry and land use in the nationally determined contribution to the UNFCCC;

agreements and other instruments between the country concerned and the Union and/or its Member States that address deforestation and forest degradation and facilitate compliance of relevant commodities and relevant products with Article 3 and their effective implementation;

whether the country concerned has national or subnational laws in place, including in accordance with Article 5 of the Paris Agreement, and takes effective enforcement measures to tackle deforestation and forest degradation, and to avoid and penalise activities leading to deforestation and forest degradation and in particular whether it applies penalties of sufficient severity to deprive of the benefits accruing from deforestation or forest degradation;

whether the country concerned makes relevant data available transparently; and, if applicable, the existence, compliance with, or effective enforcement of laws protecting human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities and other customary tenure rights holders;

sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council or the Council of the European Union on imports or exports of the relevant commodities and relevant products.

registration of operators and traders and their authorised representatives in the Union; for operators placing relevant products under the customs procedure ‘release for free circulation’ or ‘export’, the Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number established pursuant to Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013, shall be included in their registration profile;

registration of due diligence statements including the communication to the operator or trader concerned of a reference number for each due diligence statement submitted through the information system;

making available the reference number of existing due diligence statements pursuant to Article 4(8) and (9);

where possible, the conversion of data from relevant systems to identify the geolocation;

registration of the outcome of checks on due diligence statements;

interconnection with customs through the European Union Single Window Environment for Customs, in accordance with Article 28, including to allow the notifications and requests referred to in Article 26(6) to (9);

provision of relevant information to support the risk-profiling for the plan of checks referred to in Article 16(5), including results of checks, the risk-profiling of operators, traders and relevant commodities and relevant products for the purpose of identifying, based on electronic data-processing techniques, operators and traders to be checked as referred to in Article 16(5), and relevant products to be checked by competent authorities;

facilitation of administrative assistance and cooperation between competent authorities, and between competent authorities and the Commission, to exchange information and data;

support communication between competent authorities and operators and traders for the purposes of implementation of this Regulation, including, where appropriate, through the use of digital supply management tools.

the need for and feasibility of additional trade facilitation tools – and in particular for LDCs highly impacted by this Regulation and countries or parts thereof classified as standard or high risk – to support the achievement of the objectives of this Regulation;

the impact of this Regulation on farmers, in particular smallholders, indigenous peoples and local communities and the possible need for additional support for the transition towards sustainable supply chains and for smallholders to meet the requirements of this Regulation;

the further extension of the definition of forest degradation, on the basis of an in-depth analysis, and taking into account progress made in international discussions on the matter;

the threshold for mandatory use of polygons as referred to in Article 2, point (28), taking into account its impact on tackling deforestation and forest degradation;

changes in the trade patterns of the relevant commodities and relevant products included in the scope of this Regulation when those changes could be an indication of a practice of circumvention;

an assessment of whether the checks carried out have been effective to ensure that relevant commodities and relevant products made available on the market or exported comply with Article 3.