PRODUCT LIABILITY in the EU: Everything changes from 9 December 2026 – check your existing and future distribution agreements now!

📅 On 21 and 22 April 2026, I will speak about the new EU Product Liability Directive 2024/2853 at a two‑half‑day online seminar organized by ICC Austria (International Chamber of Commerce, Vienna). You can find the programme here: “Product Liability in the EU – current developments”.

The new EU Product Liability Directive 2024/2853 will replace the current 1985 regime and fundamentally change the rules of the game for product compliance in Europe – for industry, software and AI development, crafts, trade and e‑commerce.

Smart products, software, digital solutions and systems using artificial intelligence (AI) are now explicitly in scope. A key point of reference for the new Product Liability Directive is the AI Act – Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence.

💡 In my ICC online seminar on 21 & 22 April 2026 (each day 13:30–16:30), I will provide a compact overview of the key changes and their practical consequences:

🖥️ New product categories: software, digital products, AI, cybersecurity, IoT & robotics.
🔗 Extended obligations along the supply chain: online marketplaces, fulfilment service providers, EU representatives, and apparent manufacturers.
⚖️ Stricter liability rules: broader disclosure duties (discovery‑like access to evidence); if they are not met, courts may presume defect, causation and liability.

👉 Register now: “Produkthaftung in der EU – aktuelle Themenbereiche”.​

🚀 Anyone developing, manufacturing or distributing products in the EU should be aware of these changes. For more on how to correctly structure distribution agreements, see my contribution on Legalmondo: “Distribution Agreements in Austria”.​