Earlier this week I was at St. Louis University to present at its product safety management program, an intensive executive education course offered by the University’s business school for product safety professionals. I have done this several times before and, as always, the students were smart, insightful and articulate as they posed practical questions about complying with the complex CPSC rules that have been issued over the past several years.
It was interesting to me that the class participants were all aware of the CPSC’s proposed changes to the voluntary recall rule. Quite a bit of concern was expressed by the class about how those rules, if finalized, would change the recall process. I was very impressed that company compliance professionals are watching what happens with this rule—clearly, this is not inside baseball.
Much has been written about this proposed rule—how it is a solution in search of a problem; how it will fundamentally change the voluntary recall process; how it will slow down recalls to the detriment of consumers.
The Washington Legal Foundation recently asked me for my thoughts on how the proposed rule would impact the voluntary recall process. Today they published my article and you can find it here:
http://www.wlf.org/upload/legalstudies/legalbackgrounder/042514LB_Nord.pdf.
Let me know what you think.