The Personal Care Products Council is hosting the three-day conference and roundtable (17-19 June) at the Fairmount Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver to explore regulatory and legal developments relevant to cosmetics.
Lists and lawsuits
The first session entitled ‘Chemical lists and legalities in California and elsewhere’ will discuss the proliferation of chemical lists and their use in the development of chemical policies and regulations.
The session will also cover legal developments in California within the past year relating to chemicals, in particular the Proposition 65 and state enforcement actions.
After that, litigation trends will be discussed. A panel of legal experts will tackle the rise of lawsuits in the industry, the reasons for the increase and their characteristics.
Litigators will also identify strategies to help companies anticipate and prepare for lawsuits targeting their products.
Social networking
After lunch, two sessions will focus on the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and online blogs.
Legal issues arising from online social networking will be discussed such as the potential for defamation actions and employers using information about employees.
The talks will also look into advertising on social networking sites and emerging forms of advertising such as branded entertainment.
Latin America
On the second day of the conference, industry growth and opportunities in Latin America will be discussed. The panel, featuring representatives from industry associations in the region, will explore regulatory developments in Latin American and relationships between trading groups.
The market implications for the personal care industry of regional harmonization will also be discussed.
The issues confronting in-house counsel on a daily basis will then be covered in a session on the ‘Problems and Pitfalls for In-House Counsel’.
In the afternoon, Darren Praznik from Canadian trade body CCTFA will give a talk called ‘Regulatory Initiatives in Canada: What your company needs to know!’.
On the Friday, the Canadian theme will continue with two sessions on ‘Environmental law on either side of the border: A comparison of Environment Canada and US EPA’.
With environmental concern about consumer products on the rise, James Chen from Crowell & Moring and Richard King from Ogilvy Renault will discuss what is on the horizon for the industry in terms of environmental regulatory priorities.
Obama roundtable
The program will finish with a regulatory roundtable looking into the implications for the personal care industry of the new Obama administration. The Council said: “Regulations are growing more complex than ever, and we can only expect this trend to continue under the current administration.”
Current and future regulatory initiatives most likely to affect the cosmetics industry will be identified and discussed.