The Revised Product Liability Directive

Open Questions at the Time of Implementation

David Messner-Kreuzbauer

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9783119144926
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783112215111
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Civil Law
• Index: Law

Liability law is rapidly changing in quite a number of countries. This is due to various factors, which are interrelated to a large extent: changing case law and legislation as well as increased and still increasing technical and medical knowledge. As a result, various occupational diseases can, for example, be attributed to working conditions or personal injury to specific products. From the very moment that causation can be proven, the question arises of whether or not liability can be established – with far-reaching economic consequences for all parties involved.
The rise of phenomena such as mass torts, multiple causation, joint and several liability or various heads of damages (like ecological damage and several diseases and affections) rapidly increases the interest in tort law. In the context of the interrelation between liability and insurance, attention must be paid to the question of whether certain liabilities are still coverable or not, and, if they are, to what amounts.
(The question of jurisdictions is of growing importance as is the question of whether a specific liability can be covered by insurance. In this context, one should bear in mind that the affordability of tort law also requires safe and sound insurers. The recent past has shown that there is a limit to their financial stability.)

Table of contents

• Frontmatter
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• New Product Liability: Common Challenges for National Transpositions and Adjudication
• The Definition of Product: Between Software, Information and Services
• AI Defects in the New Product Liability Directive
• Farewell to the ‘Factory Gate Principle’?
• Legal Twins: References and Coherence between the New Product Liability and Product Safety Laws
• Relevant Harm and Remedies: Sufficiently Updated or Too Narrow?
• Causation And Limits to Liability in the PLD 2024
• Product Liability Under Scientific Uncertainty: Does the PLD 2024 Yield New Answers?
• Branching Out/Looking In: English Law and the New Directive
• The Larger Framework of EU Law: Interlocking Pieces or Patchwork?
• How Strict is EU Product Liability Now?
• The Revised Product Liability Directive
• Publications
• Index