Product safety and product liability in the light of recent Maltese legislative developments

Abstract

Product Safety and Product Liability are relatively new concepts within our legal order - which concepts have recently acquired new importance in the light of the enactment of the Product Safety Act 2001 and the amendments to the Consumer Affairs Act 1994 for the purpose of transposing the relative European Community Directives into our domestic legislation. In particular, the Consumer Affairs Act has introduced the notion of strict liability. Thus, a producer might be held responsible for damages arising from defects incorporated within his products, notwithstanding that no fault may be imputable to him, and notwithstanding the absence of any contractual obligation holding the producer responsible for such damages. However, this strict liability imputable to producers is not absolute, and producers may in fact invoke a number of defences to exempt themselves from liability. Liability for damages arising from defective products is not however the only deterrent that producers are faced with - a number of sanctions, including those of a criminal nature, are provided for under the Product Safety Act in relation to the failure of satisfying the obligation of placing only safe products on the market. Thus product safety is complementary to product liability, in that whilst the latter provides redress for an injured party who suffers damages in consequence of using a defective product, the former attempts to prohibit such defective products from entering the market into the first place. The Product Safety Act and the Consumer Affairs Act should therefore be viewed together, since the obligations set forth in them create a new system of protection of health and safety of persons in relation to the use of products. Nonetheless, the Product Safety Act deals with the provision of safety requirements on a generic ievei - however the regime of product safety as such also includes a number of other specific regulations adopted for the purpose of providing detailed provisions particular to a variety of classes of products, which specific regulations fall outside the scope of this thesis. The Product Safety Act is concerned also with the assessment procedures preceding the placement of a product on the market. Nonetheless, a total elimination of all possible risks is not achievable - thus the intention of the legislator is that of minimizing such risks as much as possible. New heightened obligations are thus now placed on businesses. Nonetheless, such change might in turn be beneficial in that it will promote high quality enterprise and enhance competitiveness.