Category Archives: Products liability
‘Law Commission consults on product liability reform. A step too far?’
Earlier this month the Law Commission published its consultation paper on product liability reform. The paper proposes to modernise the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (CPA) for the digital age, bringing digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, social media and video games into scope among a raft of other proposals. The European Union recently conducted its […]
‘Law Commission proposes major overhaul of product liability law for the digital age’
The Law Commission has launched a consultation on major reform to product liability law to ensure that it remains effective in a world increasingly shaped by digital technologies. A summary of the full paper is attached. The law governing defective products was introduced almost 40 years ago, before smartphones, apps, social media and artificial intelligence. […]
Dawid, Kashefi and Muehlheusser, ‘Platform Liability, Product Safety and Optimal Pricing’
ABSTRACT Should platforms be held legally responsible for harm caused by products or services offered by third-party sellers? We address this question in a novel setting in which product safety (the likelihood of accidents) is determined by third-party sellers, while the consumer price is set by a monopolistic platform that pays sellers a commission. Relevant […]
Adel Kildeev, ‘When The AI Tool Causes Harm: From Family Lawsuits To Public-Entity Claims Against AI Manufacturers’
ABSTRACT This Article examines the evolution of AI liability litigation arising from the Tumbler Ridge tragedy, culminating in the September 2026 action brought by the Province of British Columbia and School District No 59 against OpenAI entities and their leadership. It traces the shift from private family claims to public-entity litigation seeking both compensation and […]
Davronbek Abdugaffarov, ‘Product Liability for Artificial Intelligence in Germany and an Agenda for Modernisation in Uzbekistan and the CIS’
ABSTRACT Germany is currently completing one of the most significant modernisations of its product liability law in four decades. The Regierungsentwurf implementing Directive (EU) 2024/2853, submitted to the Bundestag in February 2026 and scheduled to enter into force by 9 December 2026, for the first time defines software and artificial intelligence systems as ‘products’ capable […]
Mindy Duffourc, ‘New Defects: Liability for Product Behavior’
ABSTRACT A recent wave of litigation against technology companies is forcing courts to address novel legal questions surrounding whether digital technologies are products subject to product liability claims. Product classification is a question of law, but the pluralistic conditions driving courts’ ad hoc assessment have led to a fragmented answer to this question for digital […]
Caitlin Burke, ‘From Publishing to Products: A History of Social Media Design and the Limits of Section 230’
ABSTRACT Waves of products liability litigation against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube are forcing courts to decide whether designed features are protected ‘publishing’ functions under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act or product-design choices subject to tort law. In the 2026 case of KGM v Meta Platforms, Inc, for example, a California jury found […]
Adel Kildeev, ‘The Tool Has a Manufacturer: Producer Liability for Legal AI’
ABSTRACT Legal responses to failures of generative artificial intelligence have focused primarily on the professionals who use AI-generated material. Lawyers have been sanctioned for fabricated authorities, firms have faced malpractice exposure, and courts have emphasized duties of competence, candour, and verification. Far less attention has been paid to the independent liability of the companies that […]
Eric Alston, ‘Whom Do You Sue? – Bonded Penalties for AI Agents Beyond the Reach of Civil Liability’
ABSTRACT When an AI agent creates harm, the law will reach for a defendant. Sometimes it can find one in the deployer who ignored warnings or the developer who shipped a defect. But a growing class of AI agents will cause harms that cannot be attached to a specific defendant: some because the harm emerges […]
Travis Gilly, ‘Never a User: The Third Party the Consent Apparatus cannot see’
ABSTRACT Contemporary governance of consumer artificial intelligence is keyed almost entirely to the user: the person who opened the application, accepted the terms, and can therefore be said to have agreed. That keying is not a drafting habit. It is the load-bearing assumption of the whole apparatus, and it produces a structural blind spot rather […]