The French Supreme Court’s controversy in tightening liability for industrial risks

This article appeared in Financier Worldwide’s March 2010 issue. Read the full article in our Publications section.

4/6/2010

Managing product liability risk in Europe

This article appeared in Financier Worldwide’s October 2009 issue. Read the full article in our Publications section.

11/10/2009

Product Recall 2010 – France

Article by Florian ENDRÖS and Muriel MAZAUD.

Read the full article in our Publications section.

11/10/2009

French Supreme Court decision on the liability of pharmaceutical laboratories of September 24, 2009

Continuation of the judicial saga about the “Distilbène daughters”: judgement on principle, or judgement of Solomon?

On September 24, 2009, the French Supreme Court (the French “Cour de Cassation”) pronounced an astonishing decision concerning the liability of pharmaceutical laboratories towards victims who had been exposed to distilbene in utero and later on developed uterine cervical cancer.

Two judgments from the Versailles Court of Appeal of November 29, 2007 and April 10, 2008 concerning the liability of pharmaceutical laboratories concerning the distilbene molecule had been transferred to the first Civil Division of the French “Cour de Cassation” for a revision of their compliance with French law.

The French “Cour de Cassation” quashed the judgment from the Versailles Court of Appeal of April 10, 2008, and decided that it is incumbent on each of the incriminated laboratories (in this particular case UCB Pharma and Novartis) to prove that its product didn’t cause the damage, since the DES had demonstrably been the cause of the tumoral pathology, thus reversing the burden of proof in favour of the victim.

This judgment could have severe consequences for  pharmaceutical laboratories in that it assigns full liability to the laboratories manufacturing this molecule. However, this judgment has to be seen in the particular context of the distilbene scandal, which raises a problem of public health, as the causal link between the molecule and the cancer has been perfectly established and the victims struggle with a problem of proof because the medical archives do not allow the preservation of copies of prescriptions issued more than 35 years ago.

Therefore, it is more than likely that this judicial legend will be continued.

11/9/2009

Important reform of the Machinery Directive (Directive 2006/42/CE)

D – three months :on December 29, 2009, the order n°2008-1156 dated November 7, 2008 regarding work equipment and  individual protection equipment, and implementing the Machinery Directive  (Directive 2006/42/CE), will  enter into force.

This means that, from this date, the design,  manufacture,  launch onto the market and the usage of machines on member states’ territory will be subject to new safety requirements.

Some novelties introduced within this text can be quoted:

• the requirements regarding the risk assessment as well as the principle of safety integration by the manufacturer are more detailed,
• quasi-machines (subset destined to be integrated into a machine) will fall under the scope of the Directive,
• the previous Directive required translation of the declaration of conformity and  instructions for use into the language of the user. The new Directive goes further in that it requires a precise indication of their translation on the documents as well as the enclosure of the original documents,
• the new Directive contains a more detailed list of the safety components falling under its scope of application.

11/9/2009

Recommendation of a new book about product liability in France

Probleme bei der Harmonisierung des Privatrechts durch Richtlinie

Von Dr. Florian Endrös.
Abhandlungen zum Recht der Internationalen Wirtschaft,
2008, XXI, 293 Seiten, Kt. € 79,-
ISBN 978-3-8005-1487-8

Verlag Recht und Wirtschaft GmbH, Frankfurt am Main

In June 2009 the new publication “Product liability in France – Difficulties of harmonization of private law under the terms of the Directive” has been published in the series “Essays about international business law” about the latest update of French product liability. This book is a complete new actualized version of the thesis of Dr. Florian Endrös, which he has defended at the University of Bielefeld in 2006. This completely revised version is introduced by a preface of Professor Dr. Otto Sandrock.

6/25/2009

www.eba-avocats.com

The new Endrös-Baum Associés website is online!

3/14/2008