Where a company prioritises adverse impacts under Article 9, the mere fact that it did not address a less significant impact does not expose it to penalties under Article 27.
The requirement, in our words
Where a company prioritises adverse impacts in line with Article 9, not having addressed a less significant impact cannot, by itself, expose it to penalties under Article 27. The protection depends on a documented prioritisation made by severity and likelihood.
Why it matters
The protection is conditional on a documented prioritisation. It does not allow a company to defer a severe impact on cost grounds, and it does not remove the duty to address the impact later. The value is that a rational prioritisation decision, properly recorded, is not treated as a violation by itself.
What changed
Article 9 gains paragraph 4. The old text required prioritisation but did not state the penalty consequence.
What to do
- Build a prioritisation matrix that ranks impacts by severity and likelihood.
- Record the rationale and the review date, and have the board or committee approve it.
- Do not use cost alone to defer a severe impact.
Evidence to have ready
| Category | Artefact |
|---|---|
| Risk prioritisation | Prioritisation matrix ranking identified impacts by severity and likelihood with the rationale |
| Risk prioritisation | Board or committee approval of the prioritisation and its review date |
| Risk prioritisation | Log of lower-priority impacts deferred and when they will be revisited |
Common failures
- Prioritisation undocumented, so the company cannot show a deferred impact was less significant
- Severe impacts deferred on cost grounds
Dates
Transposition by 26 July 2028; application from 26 July 2029.
The question to test
Is the prioritisation documented well enough that a supervisor can see why a less significant impact was deferred?
Cross-references
A4-7 Scoping and in-depth assessment · A4-10 Potential impact last resort · A4-11 Actual impact last resort
Source
Article 4(7), adding Article 9(4) of Directive (EU) 2024/1760; OJ L 2026/470, 26 February 2026; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32026L0470. Our statement of the duty, read from the Official Journal text and the held control record, not the instrument verbatim.
Not legal advice; does not certify. A reading of the duty and the evidence commonly sampled, not a substitute for the Official Journal text, the national transposing measure or your auditor's judgement.