The importance & necessity of recurrent due diligence

Do I need to verify a Chinese certificate?

In many cases, we trust a certificate more than a man’s word, especially when it comes to business.

Certificates can’t tell you how a company runs their business but they can tell you if the company has the ability to fulfill your requirements, or, they are eligible to do certain things, like export, manufacture or provide lab testing and calibration.

Below is a real case that we dealt with regarding certificate validation that shows the importance of recurrent due diligence to ensure the validity of your suppliers/clients’ claims.

1. Our client wanted to verify a CNAS (China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment) certificate from a lab testing company who claimed their company is accredited by CNAS and they have the eligibility performing lab testing and calibration which is required by our client’s customer. The certificate is in PDF format looks legit and authentic.

2. We checked the registration info of that testing company on AIC, they are in business and the licensed business scopes include performing lab testes of various materials.

3. Refer to CNAS website https://www.cnas.org.cn/ and searched by company name, certificate registration number and address. No record under that company’s name. —Red flag

4. Called CNAS administration to double confirm the situation. Be told the certificate under that registration number has been revoked. We traced down the further details of the revocation on CNAS website which indicates the reason & effective date of the revocation. —Confirmed the certificate is no longer valid.

Our client was surprised yet glad they didn’t overlook the small possibility. They have to look for another qualified company to perform the test,

“But, it’s better sooner than later”

says him.

So remember,

•  Sometimes, when you have special requirements from your customers, such as a particular material has to pass a certain criterion (by a certain certified testing facility), it is critical to ensure the testing company’s certificate is valid while the test is being performed;

• Even an authentic certificate can become invalid before the expiry date showed on the certificate for various reasons.

• The importance and necessity of recurrent due diligence

• A small invest in certificate validation can give you a peace of mind, or, save you a lot of time, money and company reputation.

We provide certificate validation for many different certificates issued by China.

You may purchase our certificate validation service if you are interested.