In this episode, ECIPE’s Fredrik Erixon and Oscar Guinea talk about the EU’s revised Product Liability Directive (PLD) and how it risks fuelling many new class action lawsuits. Is it really good for Europe’s economy that it imports more of America’s litigation culture for managing collective redress?
Together, they look into how the PLD expands “product” to include software, AI systems, algorithms, and digital files, and how new evidentiary presumptions and disclosure rules could lower the burden of proof for claimants.
The discussion links the PLD to Europe’s growing “mass litigation” infrastructure (funders, specialised law firms, claim-bundling platforms), warns about forum shopping and Single Market fragmentation, and contrasts litigation-heavy models with Nordic approaches centred on public enforcement and alternative dispute resolution.
You can watch a video recording of this conversation here.
You can read a transcript of the chat here.