26 Amendments of Daniel BUDA related to 2022/0302(COD)
Amendment 62 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 3
Recital 3
(3) Directive 85/374/EEC has been an effective and relevant instrument, but it has been noted that it needs to be revised in light of developments related to new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), new circular economy business models and new global supply chains, the development of which haves led to inconsistences in the application of rules and legal uncertainty, in particular as regards the meaning of the term ‘product’. Experience gained from applying Directive 85/374/EEC has also shown that injured persons face difficulties obtaining compensation due to restrictions on making compensation claims and due to challenges in gathering evidence to prove liability, especially in light of increasing technical and scientific complexity. This includes claims for damages related to new technologies, including AI. The revision will therefore encourage the roll-out and uptake of such new technologies, including AI, while ensuring that claimantall consumers can enjoy the same level of protection irrespective of the technology involved, and that all businesses benefit from a level playing field with proper legal certainty, while avoiding high costs and risks for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and start-ups.
Amendment 64 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 4
Recital 4
(4) A revision of Directive 85/374/EEC is also needed in order to ensure coherence and consistency with product safety and market surveillance legislation at Union and national level. In addition, there is a need to clarify basic notions and concepts to ensure coherence and legal certainty, and a level playing field in the internal market, and to reflect recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Amendment 65 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 5
Recital 5
(5) Considering the extensive nature of the amendments that would be required and in order to ensure fair applicability, clarity and legal certainty, Directive 85/374/EEC should be repealed and replaced with a new Directive, adapted to the conditions of all products on the internal market, while ensuring a level playing field for companies in the EU.
Amendment 67 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 6
Recital 6
(6) In order to ensure the Union’s product liability regime is comprehensive and fair, no-fault liability for defective products should apply to all movables, including when they are integrated into other movables or installed in immovables.
Amendment 71 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 8
Recital 8
(8) In order to create a genuine internal market with a high and uniform level of consumer protection, and to reflect the case law of the Court of Justice, Member States should not be, in respect of matters within the scope of this Directive, maintain or introduce more, or less, stringent provisions than those laid down in this Directive. To the extent that Member States lay down rules in their national law which concern matters other than those regulated by this Directive, they should apply in so far as they do not prejudice the aims of this Directive.
Amendment 102 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 17
Recital 17
(17) In the interests of legal certainty, it should be clarified that personal injury includes medically recognised damage to psychological health, to the extent that such damage is harmful to a person’s general health.
Amendment 106 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 18
Recital 18
(18) While Member States should provide full, proportionate and proper compensation for all material losses resulting from death, or personal injury, or damage to or destruction of property and data loss or corruption, rules on calculating compensation should be laid down by Member States. Furthermore, this Directive should not affect national rules relating to non-material damage.
Amendment 121 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 25
Recital 25
(25) In the interests of consumer choice and in order to encourage innovation, research and easy access to new technologies, the existence, or subsequent placing, on the market of a better product should not in itself lead to the conclusion that a previous product is defective. Equally, the supply of updates or upgrades to a product should not in itself lead to the conclusion that a previous version of the product is defective, and this should be mentioned when the updated version is placed on the market.
Amendment 139 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 32
Recital 32
(32) In respect of confidential information and trade secrets within the meaning of Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council48, national courts should be empowered to take all specific measures necessary to ensure their confidentiality of trade secretsboth during and after the proceedings, while achieving a fair and proportionate balance between the interest of the trade-secret holder to secrecy and the interest of the injured person. This should include at least measures to restrict access to documents containing confidential information and trade secrets or alleged trade secrets and access to hearings to a limited number of people, or allowing access to redacted documents or transcripts of hearings. When deciding on such measures, national courts should take into account: (i) the need to ensure the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial; (ii) the legitimate interests of the parties and, where appropriate, of third parties; and (iii) any potential harm for either of the parties, and, where appropriate, for third parties, resulting from the granting or rejection of such measures. _________________ 48 Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (OJ L 157, 15.6.2016, p. 1).
Amendment 146 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 33
Recital 33
(33) It is also necessary to alleviate the claimant’s burden of proof provided that certain conditions are fulfilled. Rebuttable presumptions of fact are a common mechanism for alleviating a claimant’s evidential difficulties, and allow a court to base the existence of defectiveness or causal link on the presence of another fact that has been proven, while preserving the rights of the defendant. In order to provide an incentive to comply with the obligation to disclose information, national courts should presume the defectiveness of a product where a defendant fails to comply with such an obligation. Many legislative and mandatory safety requirements have been adopted in order to protect consumers and the public from the risk of harm. In order to reinforce the close relationship between product safety rules and liability rules, non-compliance with such requirements should also result in a presumption of defectiveness. This includes cases in which a product is not equipped with the means to log information about the operation of the product as required under Union or national law. The same should apply in the case of obvious malfunction, such as a glass bottle that explodes in the course of normal use, since it is unnecessarily burdensome to require a claimant to prove defectiveness when the circumstances are such that its existence is undisputed.
Amendment 163 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 39
Recital 39
(39) In the interests of a fair apportionment of risks, manufactureeconomic operators should also be exempted from liability if they prove that the general state of scientific and technical knowledge, determined with reference to the most advanced level of objective knowledge accessible and not to the actual knowledge of the manufactureeconomic operator in question, while the product was within their control was such that the existence of defectiveness could not be discovered.
Amendment 175 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 45
Recital 45
(45) In order to facilitate harmonised interpretation of this Directive by national courts, Member States should be required to publish relevant court judgments on product liabilityinform the public, by means easily accessible to the public, of relevant court judgments on product liability. To this end, the Commission should make a common platform available to Member States and maintain it.
Amendment 181 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 1 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Article 1 – paragraph 1 a (new)
The aim of this Directive is to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market, while ensuring a high level of consumer protection and a level playing field for all businesses, and avoiding high costs and risks for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups. This Directive seeks to combat legislative fragmentation and to remove divergences between the legal systems of Member States related to the liability of economic operators for damage suffered by natural persons caused by defective products.
Amendment 191 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 2 – paragraph 3 – point b a (new)
Article 2 – paragraph 3 – point b a (new)
(ba) protection of confidential information and trade secrets;
Amendment 194 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 3 – paragraph 1
Article 3 – paragraph 1
Member States shall not maintain or introduce, in their national law, provisions diverging from those laid down in this Directive, including more, or less, stringent provisions to achieve a different level of consumer protection, unless otherwise provided for in this Directive. To the extent that Member States lay down rules in their national law which concern matters other than those regulated by this Directive, they should apply in so far as they do not prejudice the aims of this Directive.
Amendment 249 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 4 – paragraph 1 – point 12
Article 4 – paragraph 1 – point 12
12. ‘authorised representative’ means any natural or legal person established within the Union who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer to act on his or her behalf in relation to specified tasksits behalf for the purpose of this Directive;
Amendment 272 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 6 – paragraph 1 – point a
Article 6 – paragraph 1 – point a
(a) the presentation of the product, including the instructions for installation, use and maintenance if they are related to the damage caused;
Amendment 279 #
(b) the reasonably foreseeable use and misuse of the product;
Amendment 281 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 6 – paragraph 1 – point c
Article 6 – paragraph 1 – point c
(c) the effect on the product of any ability to continue to learn after deploymentbeing placed on the market or put into service;
Amendment 305 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 7 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 2
Article 7 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 2
Member States shall ensure that, where a defective component has caused the product to be defective, the manufacturer of a defective component can also be held liable and accountable for the same damage.
Amendment 317 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 7 – paragraph 3
Article 7 – paragraph 3
(3) Member States shall ensure that, where the manufacturer of the defective product is established outside the Union and neither of the economic operators referred to in paragraph 2 is established in the Union, the fulfilment service provider can be held liable and accountable for damage caused by the defective product.
Amendment 337 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 8 – paragraph 1
Article 8 – paragraph 1
(1) Member States shall ensure that national courts are empowered, upon request of an injured person claiming compensation for damage caused by a defective product (‘the claimant’) who has presented facts and evidence sufficient to support the plausibility of the claim for compensation, to, in proceedings relating to an action for compensation for damage caused by a defective product, upon request of an injured person who has presented a reasoned justification containing reasonably available facts and evidence sufficient to support the plausibility of the claim for compensation, and where there are reasons to believe that strictly relevant additional evidence lies in the control of the defendant without which the claimant is unable to prove the claim for compensation, national courts may order the defendant to disclose such strictly relevant evidence, that is at its disposalaking into account the protection of confidential information and trade secrets as a matter of priority, in accordance with national law.
Amendment 362 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 9 – paragraph 2 – point a
Article 9 – paragraph 2 – point a
Amendment 389 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 9 – paragraph 4 – subparagraph 1 – point b
Article 9 – paragraph 4 – subparagraph 1 – point b
(b) it is highly likely that the product was defective orin such a way that its defectiveness is a highly likely cause of the damage, or both.
Amendment 403 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 10 – paragraph 1 – point e
Article 10 – paragraph 1 – point e
(e) in the case of a manufacturer, that the objectivthat the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time when the product was placed on the market, put into service or in the period in which the product was within the manufacturer’s control was not such that the defectiveness could be discovered;
Amendment 442 #
Proposal for a directive
Article 15 – paragraph 2
Article 15 – paragraph 2
(2) The Commission mayshall set up and maintain an easily accessible and publicly available database containing the judgments referred to in paragraph 1.