LUXEMBOURG (CN) — The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that the bloc's consumer safety regulations allow member states to ban cosmetics if they look too similar to food.
The European Court of Justice sided with Lithuania – which ordered a British cosmetic company in 2018 to stop selling several bath bombs the authorities thought looked edible and could pose a danger to children – finding the Lithuanian government in Vilnius had the right to regulate the products under EU law.
Get Fresh Cosmetics, based in the United Kingdom, sold a variety of bath products, including effervescent bath bombs named “polka dot princess” and “skin candy," via a now-defunct online store. During a routine inspection, the Consumer Protection Office in Lithuania determined that several types of bath bombs were dangerous and ordered the company to withdraw them from the market. The regulatory agency argued that people, especially children and the elderly, could mistake the bath products for food and become ill after eating them.
The company appealed the decision. Eventually, the Supreme Court of Lithuania referred the case to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice to assess whether a 1987 EU law regulating consumer safety allowed the Lithuanian authorities to ban the bath bombs. Get Fresh Cosmetics, founded in 1998, argued that the packaging materials made it clear that the products were not edible and the regulations required Lithuanian authorities to carry out testing to prove that, if ingested, the products would be dangerous.
The court’s Second Chamber concluded that the regulations give governments the right to decide that the health and safety of products can trump a company’s right to market its products.
“It is not necessary to demonstrate by objective and substantiated data that placing in the mouth, sucking or ingesting products which, although not foodstuffs, … may entail risks such as suffocation, poisoning, or the perforation or obstruction of the digestive tract.” the ruling states.
However, the court cautioned that a nonedible product merely looking like food is not enough to ban it outright. It held that countries have to evaluate every product on a case-by-case basis and justify their removal according to the criteria set out in the regulations.
The case will now return to the Lithuanian court for a final decision.
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