15.1 The logic of the 2025 simplification
The 2025 amendments concentrated due diligence on the first link — whoever places the product on the market for the first time — and turned the later links into custodians of documentary traceability. Downstream operators and traders are not responsible for compliance, do not carry out due diligence, do not submit a DDS and need not verify upstream due diligence, except in the face of a substantiated concern and only where they are non-SMEs (Guidance, section 4.d; FAQ 3.4).
There is neither a legal obligation nor a technical possibility for a downstream operator or trader to submit a DDS, even if a customer asks for one (FAQ 3.10.1).
15.2 Information duties where there is risk
All of them — SME or not — must immediately inform the competent authorities of the Member States where they placed or made the product available, and their downstream customers, upon obtaining information, including a substantiated concern, that the product is at risk of non-compliance. On export, the authority of the country of production is informed (where that is a Member State) or, failing that, the authority of the Member State of export (Article 5(5); FAQ 3.6.2).
A company is treated as having knowledge when the information reaches it by email, in a meeting with staff, through a communication from the Commission, from authorities or from other companies, or through the media (FAQ 3.6.2).
15.3 Reactive verification by non-SMEs
Faced with a substantiated concern, non-SME downstream operators and traders verify whether due diligence was carried out and whether the risk found was nil or negligible; they may not continue trading until that verification — their own or the authority's — concludes that the risk is negligible (Article 5(6)). Accepted means of verification (FAQ 3.6.2): checking the validity and content of the DDS in the system; consulting the country list, the public reports of non-SME operators and audit results; requesting information from the supplier on a voluntary basis; or, where none of that is possible, handing the chain data to the authority so that the concern travels up to the first downstream link, which then asks the operator for the DDS information.
15.4 Transition-period products
Where the product or its inputs were placed on the EU market before the date of application (or before 30/06/2027, where the upstream operator is a micro or small enterprise), downstream obligations are limited to gathering sufficiently conclusive and verifiable proof of that date (Guidance, section 3; FAQ 9.1).