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New Marketers’ Letter of Conformance

ATIEL has issued a new version of the Lubricant Marketers’ Letter of Conformance (LoC) to clarify the responsibilities of signatories and the brands covered by an LoC.

The changes are aimed at ensuring signatories understand their particular commitments under the European Engine Lubricant Quality Management System (EELQMS) by distinguishing between obligations for signatories who develop and/or manufacture lubricants that they market and those for signatories who market lubricants developed and/or manufactured by third parties.

The EELQMS is the only quality system that can be used to support claims against the ACEA Sequences, which set the minimum performance specifications for lubricants used in different European automotive engine categories. Compliance with the EELQMS, which is administered by ATIEL, allows lubricant marketers to include those claims on their product labelling.

In order to claim compliance with the system, lubricant marketers must sign an LoC confirming that their products making ACEA claims are developed and manufactured in accordance with its requirements.

The new version of the LoC, which comes into effect from 1 November 2016, also requires signatories to provide details of the lubricant brands that are covered by an LoC. This is designed to bring greater transparency around the products on the market making performance claims against the ACEA Oil Sequences, and which have been developed in accordance with the EELQMS.

LoC signatories are eligible for technical training events organised by ATIEL and designed to support formulators and marketers in their compliance with the EELQMS.

Their products may also be included in the independent quality surveys ATIEL conducts to test the validity of performance claims made for products in the market. Individual LoC signatories receive in confidence results of any of their products tested as part of the survey work.

The new version of the LoC is available on the ATIEL website at www.atiel.org/code-of-practice/letters-of-conformance and will be included in the next Issue of the ATIEL Code of Practice, due to be published later this year.

The current list of LoC signatories is available here.