Liability Management: Intellectual Property Rights-related Recourse Claims

This article reviews certain measures aimed at optimising the liability of consumer goods producers and supply chain actors in business-to-business transactions. Although the legislation that provoked these thoughts and interpretations is consumer-protection legislation, this review will not address business-to-consumer liability issues.

The relatively new Directive (EU) 219/771 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods (amending Regulation (EU) 2017/2394 and Directive 2009/22/EC, and repealing Directive 1999/44/EC ("SGD")), has shifted the spotlight onto the legal defects of goods and the legal consequences related to such defects. In contrast, the usual legislative approach until now was for consumer-protection legislation to cover mainly material defects, where legal defects had been left to the rules of the respective local general civil law.