Fielding: Proposed EU Liability Directives Seek to Address Legal Uncertainty
Shook Partner Alison Newstead, Senior Counsel Leo Fielding and Associate Vitor Castro were featured in Corporate Disputes magazine’s April-June 2023 issue. Newstead, Fielding and Castro appear as panel experts in the magazine’s Hot Topic feature titled “AI Liability Directive and Modernised Product Liability Directive.”
In the Q&A, Newstead, Fielding and Castro discuss why the European Commission is updating its Product Liability Directive (PLD) and proposing an Artificial Intelligence Liability Directive (AILD), as well as what the proposed directives mean for companies and how they can prepare.
Newstead said that courts across the European Union have been interpreting existing principles in different ways to address liability for new technologies, and, as a result, businesses have faced legal uncertainty from risk and liability exposure that differs across EU markets.
“The new PLD and AILD will bring greater consistency across the EU, allowing businesses to operate the whole market with a clearer understanding of potential risks and liabilities,” she said. “Consumers are likely to be more willing to take-up AI-enabled products if there is a clear liability regime, which would, in turn, create benefits for businesses.”
