Type: Judgment

Authority: European Authorities: Euopean Union' Court of Justice

Date: 12/02/2009

Subject: The Court ruled that Directive 85/374/EEC, on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, which permits a ‘producer’ to be sued, after the expiry of 10 years from the putting into circulation of the product, as defendant in proceedings brought within that period against supplier. After the expiry of this period that substitution is, however, possible where the supplier is wholly-owned by the producer and the latter determined the putting into circulation of the product on the market. The Directive must be interpreted as meaning that, where the person injured by an allegedly defective product was not reasonably able to identify the producer of that product before exercising his rights against the supplier of that product, that supplier must be treated as a ‘producer’, if it did not inform the injured person, on its own initiative and promptly, of the identity of the producer or its own supplier.

Parties: Aventis Pasteur

Classification: Solidarity - Art. 38 Consumer protection

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