The new Product Liability Directive: fireworks or fizzle?

• The European Commission’s proposed updates to the Product Liability Directive include a focus on bringing liability rules up to date for the digital era, and easing the burden of proof in complex cases.
• However, it is unclear what impact the proposed reforms will have in practice— particularly in the UK post-Brexit.

At the end of September, the European Commission published its proposal for an updated Product Liability Directive (PLD). In principle, the commission’s proposals promise a claimant-friendly overhaul of the existing PLD. In practice however, particularly for product liability litigators practising in the UK, there are good reasons to suspect that the proposed amendments may result in more of a fizzle than a firework.

The proposals

The original PLD was first adopted by member states almost 40 years ago, in 1985. Since that date much has changed, and will continue to change, with, what the commission terms, ‘green and digital transitions’