On 23 October 2024, the European Union passed a new Product Liability Directive (PLD) and repealed the initial version from 1985. The new text has brought considerable improvements, but many fundamental questions are still left open on the eve of the Directive’s implementation, which the Member States must complete by 9 December 2026. Led by David Messner-Kreuzbauer (Institute for European Tort Law), the book project assembled mid-career scholars who have pursued research on relevant core issues. They offered an in-depth discussion of the most pressing questions (such as whether the Directive adequately addresses AI, how far services and information can now be seen as a ‘product’, or whether the PLD’s strategy for dealing with factual and scientific uncertainty is successful). The project thereby aimed to aid national legislators, courts, and anyone else interested in Product Liability at this crucial time for the new Directive’s success.
A symposium titled ‘New Product Liability Directive – Open Questions on the Eve of Implementation’ took place in Vienna on 12 June 2025. Below you can find the programme and the slides:
- Programme
- Sarel, AI Defects in the New Product Liability Directive: A Law and Economics Perspective
- Shu Li, The Definition of a Product: Between Software, Information and Services
- Mayrhofer, Farewell to the ‘Factory Gate Principle’? – Liability for Later Defects Within the Manufacturer’s Control
- Meyer, Causation, Remoteness and Scope of Liability Under the New Product Liability Directive
- Kahn, Product Liability Under Scientific Uncertainty: Does the New Directive Yield New Answers?
- McGrath, Branching Out but Looking In: The New Directive and UK Product Liability
- Messner-Kreuzbauer, How Strict is EU Product Liability Now? Missed Opportunities and the Courts’ Heavy Responsibility