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Spindler, Gerald --- "Interaction between Product Liability and Regulation at the European Level" [2009] ELECD 318; in Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia (eds), "The Regulatory Function of European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: The Regulatory Function of European Private Law

Editor(s): Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201997

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Interaction between Product Liability and Regulation at the European Level

Author(s): Spindler, Gerald

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

8. Interaction between product liability
and regulation at the European level
Gerald Spindler

The chapter deals with types and modes of product safety regulation on the
European as well as on national levels, demonstrating that on each level simi-
lar modes have arisen in the European Community. These governance struc-
tures make use of a mixed state-private norm approach which in fact mostly
relies upon technical regulations enacted by competent private national or
European standards organizations (for example German Institute for
Standardisation (DIN); Association of German Engineers (VDI); European
Committee for Standardisation (CEN); and European Committee for
Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)). In general, these regulations
have a severe impact on product liability since they are considered as the mini-
mum standard of care in terms of tort law.1 However, courts are not bound by
private set standards as they have no force of law.2 Courts may demand higher
standards than those laid down in private regulations and sometimes openly
deviate from these standards.3 Thus, a complex interaction between standards


1 Bundesgerichtshof of 18.5.1999, VI ZR 192/98, Neue Juristische
Wochenschrift (NJW) 38 (1999), p. 2815 (2816); Spindler, Gerald (2003), in
Bamberger, Heinz Georg and Roth, Herbert (eds), Kommentar zum Bürgerlichen
Gesetzbuch, Munich, § 823, sec. 251; Wagner, Gerhard (2004), in Rebmann, Kurt,
Säcker, Franz Jürgen and Rixecker, Roland, Münchener Kommentar zum BGB,
Munich, § 823, sec. 272; Hager, Johannes (1999), in Staudinger, Kommentar zum
Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch, Zweites Buch, Recht der Schuldverhältnisse, ...