Product liability

Our product liability team understand the need to provide urgent advice, deal swiftly with regulatory issues and handle any long term litigation issues when businesses experience product failure.

We help steer your business through customer, regulatory and litigation issues arising from product failure. Crisis management is at the heart of our approach which involves handling the interface with regulatory authorities, advising on product recall and traceability.

We work with you to minimise the impact on your business, advise management in relation to any personal exposure and can assist in the presentation of the problem to the market.

When acting for insurers we also understand that your reputation in the market and your relationship with the insured is crucial.

Our lawyers

Our team have successfully advised businesses on settling actions before trial and retaining the opponent as a customer.

Our experience

We advise on disputes with suppliers and/or customers arising out of the product fail particularly the interpretation of breach of warranty and/or batch/population failure clauses and ensuring that suppliers/customers understand their obligation to mitigate their loss and co-operate in any investigation.

Specific experience includes:

  • Acting for a multinational company in relation to the recall of defective gas regulators in domestic and commercial gas meters and in the consequential settlement of claims brought by several UK utility companies.
  • Acting for a US automotive parts manufacturer in relation to the installation of a defective product in commercial vehicles manufactured in France.
  • Acting for a multinational company in relation to the failure of a component associated with the input circuit of a domestic and commercial electricity meter.
  • Advising on product liability and interpretation of Food Safety Requirements under Regulation (EU) No 178/2002 to a number of national and international food producers including acting as liaison between clients and trading standard offices and the Food Standards Agency.
  • Advising a medical device supplier on their options and potential liability following a US recall notice issued by the manufacturer. Advising on UK reporting requirements and the legality of continuing to trade.

Our clients

We act for corporates of all sizes, public bodies and government agencies and insurers of their products and services.

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