Subject matter
This Regulation lays down provisions concerning the following verification activities and requirements:
(a)
assessment of the conformity of the monitoring plans;
(b)
documents to be provided by companies to verifiers;
(c)
verification of the FuelEU reports;
(d)
risk analyses, including checks, to be carried out by verifiers;
(e)
materiality level;
(f)
reasonable assurance of verifiers;
(g)
misstatements and non-conformities;
(h)
content of the verification report;
(i)
recommendations for improvements;
(j)
site visits;
(k)
communication and competences of verifiers;
(l)
requirements in terms of competences and procedures.
Definitions
For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:
(1)
‘accreditation’ means an attestation by a national accreditation body affirming that a verifier meets the requirements of harmonised standards within the meaning of Article 2, point 9, of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 and the requirements of this Regulation, and is thus qualified to carry out the verification activities set out in Articles 4 to 25 of this Regulation;
(2)
‘non-conformity’ means one of the following:
(a)
for the purposes of assessing a monitoring plan, a situation where the plan does not fulfil the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(b)
for the purposes of verifying a FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report, either of the following situations:
(i)
where the fuel consumption or other relevant information are not reported in line with the monitoring methodology described in a monitoring plan that an accredited verifier has assessed as being satisfactory;
(ii)
where the reported data do not fulfil the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(c)
for the purposes of accreditation, any act or omission by the verifier in conflict with the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 or Regulation (EC) No 765/2008;
(3)
‘reasonable assurance’ means a high – but not absolute – degree of assurance, provided in the verification report based on the objective of reducing the verification risk according to the circumstances of the verification, and expressed positively in the verification statement, as to whether the FuelEU report or partial FuelEU report subject to verification are free of material misstatements;
(4)
‘materiality level’ means the quantitative threshold or cut-off point set out in Article 18, above which the verifier considers misstatements, individually or taken together with other misstatements, to be material;
(5)
‘inherent risk’ means the susceptibility of a parameter in the FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report to misstatements that could be material, individually or taken together with other misstatements, before taking into consideration the effect of any related control activities;
(6)
‘control risk’ means the susceptibility of a parameter in the FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report to misstatements that could be material, individually or when taken together with other misstatements, and that cannot be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis by the control system;
(7)
‘detection risk’ means the risk of a verifier not detecting a material misstatement;
(8)
‘verification risk’ means the risk, as a function of inherent, control and detection risk, of the verifier expressing an inappropriate verification opinion where the FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report are not free of material misstatements;
(9)
‘misstatement’ means an omission, misrepresentation or error in the reported data, apart from the uncertainty permissible pursuant to Article 13(3) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(10)
‘material misstatement’ means a misstatement that, in the opinion of the verifier, individually or when taken together with other misstatements, exceeds the materiality level or could otherwise have an impact on the total reported emissions or other relevant information;
(11)
‘site’ means, for the purposes of assessing the monitoring plan or verifying the FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report, a location where the monitoring process is defined and managed, including locations where relevant data and information are controlled and stored;
(12)
‘internal verification documentation’ means all internal documentation that a verifier has compiled to record documentary evidence and justification of activities carried out to assess the monitoring plan or verify a FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report pursuant to this Regulation;
(13)
‘shipping FuelEU auditor’ means an individual member of a verification team responsible for assessing a monitoring plan or verifying a FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report, other than the shipping shipping FuelEU lead auditor;
(14)
‘shipping FuelEU lead auditor’ means a shipping FuelEU auditor in charge of directing and supervising the verification team, who is responsible for performing the assessment of a monitoring plan and for reporting on the assessment, or for performing the verification of a FuelEU report and partial FuelEU report and for reporting on the verification;
(15)
‘independent reviewer’ means a person assigned by the verifier specifically to carry out internal review activities, who belongs to the same entity but has not carried out any of the verification activities subject to review;
(16)
‘technical expert’ means a person who provides detailed knowledge and expertise on a specific matter as required for the performance of verification activities and accreditation activities for the purposes of Articles 30 to 38;
(17)
‘verification’ means the activities carried out by a verifier to issue a FuelEU document of compliance pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(18)
‘FuelEU report’ means a report as referred to in Article 15(3) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(19)
‘partial FuelEU report’ means a FuelEU report prepared in the event of the transfer of a ship from one company to another as referred to in Article 15(4) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(20)
‘analytical procedures’ means the analysis of fluctuations and trends in the data, including an analysis of the relationships that are inconsistent with other relevant information or that deviate from predicted amounts;
(21)
‘control system’ means the risk assessment and entire set of control activities, including the continuous management thereof, established, documented, implemented and maintained by a company to report the data required by Regulation (EU) 2023/1805;
(22)
‘control activity’ means any act carried out or any measure implemented by the company to mitigate inherent risks.
Presumption of conformity
A verifier that demonstrates conformity with the criteria laid down in the relevant harmonised standards or parts thereof, the references of which have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union , shall be presumed to comply with the requirements of this Regulation in so far as the applicable harmonised standards cover those requirements.
