*** UPDATED On April 23, 2026 ***
By December 9, 2026, all EU Member States are required to update their product liability laws to align with the (new) Product Liability Directive (EU) 2024/2853 (“PLD”). The PLD imposes liability on manufacturers of products (and other relevant parties) for harm caused by defective products, regardless of fault. The PLD modernizes the current EU product liability framework and renders the framework more claimant-friendly (see our previous blog post). It is expected to lead to an increase in claims, primarily as a result of the following changes:
- Expanded scope of products falling within the PLD, including bringing AI and other software into scope.
- Broader scope of recoverable damages, including psychological harm, property damage of any amount and data loss or corruption.
- Liability beyond the point of sale, holding manufacturers responsible not only for defects at the time of sale but also for those arising while the product is under their control, such as failing to provide security and software updates.
- Presumptions and disclosure obligations that ease the burden of proof for claimants. For example: (i) courts may presume defectiveness where damage results from an “obvious malfunction” during “reasonably foreseeable use”; (ii) presume causality where the product is defective and the damage is of a “kind typically consistent” with that defect; and (iii) presume defectiveness and/or causality where, despite disclosure, the claimant faces excessive technical difficulties and shows that it is likely the product is defective or linked to the damage.
- Greater transparency and enforcement, including requirements for publishing any final judgments delivered by the national courts of appeal or courts of last instance in proceedings pursuant to the PLD, which could create risk of follow-on litigation.
The PLD does not apply directly in Member States. Instead, each country must transpose the PLD’s rules into national law, and that process is now well under way in several jurisdictions. As of April 2026, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Sweden have published bills transposing the PLD, while Hungary has already adopted its transposing law.
While the PLD aims at full harmonization, early transposition efforts show that meaningful national divergences are emerging, particularly in areas where the Directive allows Member States some discretion or where national lawmakers have gone beyond the PLD’s baseline.
Key areas where differences are already apparent include:
- Non-material damage: The PLD leaves it to Member States to decide whether compensation should extend to non-material harm (e.g., pain and suffering). Germany’s draft law transposing the PLD allows recovery of non‑material damage in accordance with general civil‑law principles. The Dutch draft law does not expressly refer to a requirement for medical recognition of psychological harm, as provided for in the PLD.
- Development risk defense: The PLD allows Member States to retain or abolish this defense, which shields producers from liability if a defect could not have been discovered given the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time of marketing. The Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Slovakia have opted to retain the defense, sometimes with sector-specific carve outs. By contrast, Finland’s draft legislation does not provide for a development risk defense, reflecting a continuation of its existing product liability regime.
- Distributor liability: As an extension to the strict liability under the PLD, Denmark’s draft PLD law also introduces a fault‑based distributor liability regime with a reversed burden of proof. Distributors are liable for product damage unless they can demonstrate the absence of fault or negligence, including where the damage results from negligence by upstream operators or prior distributors in the supply chain.
- Recourse against software component manufacturers: Germany’s and Slovakia’s draft transposition laws do not incorporate Article 12(2) PLD, which limits recourse against small or micro‑enterprise software component manufacturers where recourse has been contractually waived. Germany’s explanatory memorandum to the draft notes that this specific statutory rule is unnecessary in light of existing contract‑law mechanisms.
- Disclosure obligations: While the PLD introduces targeted disclosure obligations, Member States are taking different implementation approaches. For example, Denmark’s draft law expressly permits courts to order defendants to produce newly created documents generated through the compilation or organization of existing information. Finland implements the PLD’s mechanisms within its existing civil‑procedure framework, limiting such orders to substantiated party requests and subjecting them to proportionality and procedural safeguards. Such safeguards include confining court orders to how already existing evidence is presented, rather than requiring the creation of new material, preserving the affected party’s right to be heard before any order is made, and excluding coercive enforcement tools such as fines or bailiff action.
Some Member States are also using the transposition process to clarify the PLD’s interaction with sector‑specific liability regimes. For example, the German draft clarifies the relationship between the upcoming product liability regime and other sector-specific liability rules by excluding its application to certain medicinal products and referring those to the liability regime under the Medicinal Products Act (Arzneimittelgesetz) instead. This approach illustrates how Member States can preserve existing strict liability frameworks for high-risk sectors while implementing the PLD.
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Covington advises companies on the specific steps needed to comply with the new PLD, including national laws transposing it. We provide practical, actionable strategies tailored to your products, risk profile, and markets, while closely tracking implementation across all EU Member States. For detailed guidance or jurisdiction-specific updates, do not hesitate to contact us.