UIC terminated its relationship with EPAL at the end of 2012 and announced the approval of several new pallet organisations instead, including EPAL’s former audit company SGS and a pallet producer, despite their having contracts with EPAL.
UIC, made up of European railway companies, also declared that pallet organisations and licence holders co-operating with it in the future should use UIC labelling in place of the EPAL mark as part of a new “one brand strategy”.
EPAL, comprising 1,500 members and an annual Euro pallet production of 67 million pallets, was founded in 1991 to work with European railways to maintain a Europe-wide quality assurance and inspection standard for the Euro pallet.
It said it would not legally challenge the decision and its activities as a pallet organisation would continue.
“The new pallet organisations named by the UIC working group are not comparable with EPAL as an international pallet organisation and its national associations in 14 countries,” EPAL said.
It labelled UIC’s decision as a “backwards step”. EPAL also said its licence holders did not need to make an agreement with any other pallet organisation.
It claims that UIC had now realised it needed the support of EPAL national committees to satisfy quality assurance questions and pallet exchange issues and has proposed working together with the national committees.
But EPAL’s national committees had “rejected” this proposal because trust had been eroded by UIC’s decisions.
Meanwhile, EPAL has changed its auditor from SGS to Bureau Veritas Services GmbH. EPAL said the scope and financial aspects of its contract with SGS were no longer suited to market conditions and EPAL was unable to implement amendments to licence contracts with EPAL licence holders – specifically to intensify the prosecution of product piracy.
“The new contract enables EPAL to react quickly and effectively to changes in the market and to problems associated with product piracy, and in doing so to further improve the quality of the exchange pool,” said EPAL.
The audit process will not change, but monthly reports detailing the number of pallets produced and repaired pallets will be sent direct to EPAL in the future.
