[jonbxx]

Interestingly, UL certification is not mandatory in the US unlike CE marking in the EU However, UL testing is done because the market likes it. Some regulations are stricter in the US than the EU and vice versa Food and chemical regulations in the EU are much stricter in the EU than the US for example (see the chlorinated chicken as an example)

In my field, pharmaceutical regulation is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The FDA in the US is very much YOU MUST and YOU MUST NOT. The EMA for the Europe is more about risk assessment and proving something is safe under all circumstances. There is a lot of work to harmonise standards through a group called the ICH along with MLHW/PDMA in Japan and more countries are joining all the time. The ultimate aim is to have a global medicines registration but we're a long way off yet!