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Fighting Food Fraud

Horsemeat Scandal; Use of Recalls in Enforcement throughout the EU

Sofie van der Meulen, Gilles Boin, Ioanna Bousoula, Nicola Conte-Salinas, Valeria Paganizza, Francesco Montanari, Vicente Rodriguez Fuentes, Bernd van der Meulen


To cover up the horsemeat fraud, criminal food business operators tempered with their bookkeeping. This adversely affected the traceability of horsemeat and beef alike. This article assesses to what extent national food safety authorities in seven EU Member States issued recall orders to deal with this situation. Since no measurable food safety problems have been found, several countries consider that the conditions of Article 19 of Regulation 178/2002 have not been met. In some of these countries recalls orders, nevertheless, were issued based on national food law that has a wider scope. Other countries consider disruption of traceability sufficient justification to invoke Article 19.

Sofie van der Meulen, Attorney at law at Axon Lawyers (the Netherlands). Corresponding author. Comments are welcome at: sofie.vandermeulen@axonlawyers.com. With a view to further research or publications, we specifically invite experts from countries not covered in this article to share their observations. Many thanks for background research to Rozita Spirovska Vaskoska food safety consultant/supporting assistant University Sv.Kliment Ohridski Bitola (Macedonia); Gilles Boin, Partner at Product Law Firm (France); Ioanna Bousoula, Food Law & Quality Specialist; Director at LimEat Consulting, Chios (Greece); Nicola Conte-Salinas, Attorney at law at KWG Rechtsanwälte (Germany); Valeria Paganizza, Fellow at the University of Eastern Piedmont "Amedeo Avogadro" (Italy); Francesco Montanari, Senior Associate - Arcadia International, Lisbon (Portugal); Vicente Rodriguez Fuentes, Attorney in Seville (Spain) and President of the European Food Law Association (EFLA); Bernd van der Meulen, Professor of Law and Governance at Wageningen University (the Netherlands).

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Sofie van der Meulen, Gilles Boin, Ioanna Bousoula, Nicola Conte-Salinas, Valeria Paganizza, Francesco Montanari, Vicente Rodriguez Fuentes, Bernd van der Meulen
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Sofie van der Meulen, . , Gilles Boin, . , Ioanna Bousoula, . , Nicola Conte-Salinas, . , Valeria Paganizza, . , Francesco Montanari, . , Vicente Rodriguez Fuentes, . , & Bernd van der Meulen, .
Fighting Food Fraud
European Food and Feed Law Review
Volume 10, Issue 1 (2015)
pp. 2 - 13

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