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1. Producers may appoint a producer responsibility organisation authorised in accordance with Article 58 to fulfil the extended producer responsibility obligations on their behalf. Member States may adopt measures to make the appointment of a producer responsibility organisation mandatory. Such measures shall be justified on the basis of the specific characteristics of a given category of batteries placed on the market and related waste management characteristics.

2. In the case of a collective fulfilment of extended producer responsibility obligations, producer responsibility organisations shall ensure equal treatment of producers regardless of their origin or size, without placing a disproportionate burden on producers of small quantities of batteries, including small- and medium-sized enterprises. They shall also ensure that the financial contributions paid to them by producers:

(a) are modulated in accordance with Article 8a(4), point (b), of Directive 2008/98/EC and as a minimum by battery category and battery chemistry, taking into account as appropriate the rechargeability, the level of recycled content in the manufacture of batteries and whether the batteries were subject to preparation for re-use, preparation for repurposing, repurposing or remanufacturing, and their carbon footprint; and (b) are adjusted to take account of any revenues obtained by the producer responsibility organisations from preparation for re-use or preparation for repurposing or from the value of secondary raw materials recovered from recycled waste batteries.

3. Where, in a Member State, multiple producer responsibility organisations are authorised to fulfil extended producer responsibility obligations on behalf of producers, they shall ensure coverage across the whole territory of the Member State of the activities referred to in Article 59(1), Article 60(1) and Article 61(1). Member States shall designate the competent authority or appoint an independent third party to ensure that producer responsibility organisations fulfil their obligations in coordinated manner.

4. Producer responsibility organisations shall ensure the confidentiality of the data in its possession as regards proprietary information or information directly attributable to individual producers or their authorised representatives for extended producer responsibility.

5. In addition to the information referred to in Article 8a(3), point (e), of Directive 2008/98/EC, producer responsibility organisations shall publish on their websites at least each year, subject to commercial and industrial confidentiality, the information on the rate of separate collection of waste batteries, recycling efficiencies and the levels of recovery of materials achieved by the producers which appointed the producer responsibility organisation.

6. In addition to the information referred to in paragraph 5, producer responsibility organisations shall make publicly available information on the selection procedure for waste management operators selected in accordance with paragraph 8.

7. Where necessary to avoid distortion of the internal market, the Commission is empowered to adopt an implementing act laying down criteria for the application of paragraph 2, point (a), of this Article. That implementing act shall not concern the precise determination of the level of the contributions and shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 90(3).

8. Waste management operators shall be subject to a non-discriminatory selection procedure, based on transparent award criteria, carried out by producers or producer responsibility organisations and which does not place a disproportionate burden on small- and medium-sized enterprises.