The Article 10 risk assessment: from fourteen factors to a documented determination

Once the Article 9 information is collected, Article 10 requires the operator to assess the risk that the products are non-compliant. The output is binary: the risk is negligible, or it is not. Only a negligible determination lets a due-diligence statement be filed; anything else routes into Article 11 mitigation first (Art. 4(4)(b)).

The fourteen factors, in plain groups

• The origin: the country's risk classification under the benchmarking system, the presence of forests, and the prevalence of deforestation or forest degradation in the area (factors a, b, f).
• People on the land: the presence of indigenous peoples, the consultation and cooperation with them in good faith, and any duly reasoned claims they have raised over the area used (factors c, d, e).
• The supply chain: its complexity, where products may be mixed with goods of unknown origin, and the risk of circumvention along the way (factors i, j).
• The information itself: how conclusive and verifiable it is, including concerns about its quality (factor g).
• History and context: corruption, armed conflict or sanctions, conclusions of Commission expert groups, substantiated concerns and the supplier's history of non-compliance (factors h, k, l, m).
• Complementary material: certification or other third-party-verified schemes, weighed as supporting information (factor n).

Certification sits in the list as one factor among fourteen. It informs the assessment; it cannot be the assessment.

The shortcut, and its limits

Operators sourcing exclusively from countries benchmarked as low risk may use simplified due diligence under Article 13: collect the Article 9 information, file the statement, and skip the Article 10 assessment and Article 11 mitigation. The shortcut ends the moment a substantiated concern or relevant new information arises; then the full assessment applies (Art. 13(2)).

In Sylva

Each case carries the assessment as a worked record: every factor scored with its basis, the determination recorded with who signed it and when, and an automatic switch from the simplified to the standard track when a concern is raised. The screening verdicts and the legality record feed the relevant factors directly, so the assessment reads from evidence rather than memory.