TSMA Yearbook 2018

43 Taiwan Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association could benefit from and not only the world’s leading sports brands, who anyway have both the personal and financial resources available to access any information they need. The first initiative started in September 2015 already, when the WFSGI’s members of its Legal Committee (which I have the pleasure and privilege to chair) voiced that there would be a need to address this topic and to find a solution at industrywide global level to obtain guidance through this jungle of a myriad of global labeling requirements and standards. Upon an initiative made by the WFSGI member Nike, who had been already in touch in this regard with an Irish service provider, the company COMPLIANCE & RISKS LIMITED (“C&R”) was introduced to the WFSGI. Yet, since the WFSGI is a bottom up and not a top-down organization, members were asked in a survey, whether they would find such type of service useful. The response was an overwhelming yes and the very first step taken by the WFSGI was to find out whether there were any other similar service providers on the market being capable to provide such type of comprehensive labeling information to WFSGI members (and also to the sporting goods and leisure industry in general). Yet it turned out, that only C&R was in a position to accommodate the needs of the industry on a global scale, since they are already active in other industry sectors and also in the area of providing information in other fields, such as on chemicals, etc. The Irish company has a track record of more than ten years of proven success by addressing brands, retailers and their supply chains and by having developed a knowledge management database of more than 30,000 global regulations in diverse areas. In order to obtain a tailor-made suit, which really fits the purpose for the industry experts dealing with labeling issues, it pretty soon crystallized that C&R could not just push a button and activate an already existing database of information, but that such customs made database would first have to be built and created, both in terms of contents it includes, and in terms of the specific IT backbone structure to be implemented, to make it as user-friendly as possible. This required a pre-financing to build such tailor-made database and in a series of meetings with the C&R representatives it was agreed upon in close coordination with the WFSGI and its membership that ten so-called setup companies (all WFSGI members) would chip in money and create a financial base for this project, whereby these funds were and are administered by the WFSGI as a kind of trustee all. Certain contractually defined installments are/have been released upon the realization of certain equally contractually defined milestones by C&R.