On 12 December 2024, the Forced Labour Regulation (FLR) was published prohibiting products made with forced labour on the EU market. This is the definitive and legally binding version of the FLR. 

As detailed in an earlier client insight, the prohibition on products made with forced labour, as set out in the FLR, and the resulting obligations and associated checks and enforcement, will only enter into force on 14 December 2027. Nevertheless, some provisions requiring EU Member States and the European Commission (EC) to prepare the framework for the application and enforcement of the FLR are already in force (e.g. in relation to the designation of competent authorities or the creation of forced labour databases). Companies operating in the EU would be well advised to begin surveying potential risks in their supply chains and establishing their own internal compliance programs.

Once the FLR fully enters into force, it will prohibit economic operators (meaning any natural or legal person, or association thereof) from placing or making available products made using forced labour on the EU market (including distance sales). It will also prohibit them from exporting such products from the EU.

Definition of Forced Labour

The FLR’s definition of forced labour is that used in the Forced Labour Convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO defines forced labour as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. The FLR specifically covers forced child labour as part of this definition. The ILO has published a booklet with a detailed list of “Indicators of Forced Labour” that is designed to help government entities, criminal law enforcement officials, labour inspectors, trade union officers and others to identify possible forced labour situations.

For purposes of the FLR, the use of forced labour must be considered at all stages of the upstream supply chain. This includes the extraction, harvest, production, manufacture, or processing of a product, including its parts. This also includes the working or processing related to a product.

Importantly, the European Commission is required to publish guidelines on the application and enforcement of the FLR by 14 June 2026. This should be carefully monitored, as the guidelines are expected to further detail the exact obligations faced by operators and authorities from December 2027 onward and will help inform the compliance policies and programs companies must establish.

Differences to the US Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act

The FLR is routinely compared to the US Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA).

A key difference between both texts is that the FLR does not target a specific jurisdiction per se. Instead, it applies to all products entering its market. Additionally, the UFLPA includes a forced labour presumption for goods originating in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

In contrast, the FLR includes a risk-based approach to assess the likelihood of forced labour for any given product or economic operator. (A more analogous framework may be Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which serves as the basis for UFLPA implementation but provides the US government with a mechanism to prohibit specific imports into the United States from anywhere in the world believed to have been made in whole or in part with forced, indentured, or prison labor.) A number of our US colleagues have worked on and written about global supply chain issues and forced labor compliance.

Guillermo Giralda Fustes contributed to this article