Produktansvarsloven (Lov om produktansvar), Liability for Damage Caused by a Defective Product (Directive 85/374/EEC)

Section 1 applies the Act to the liability of a producer and an intermediary for damage caused by a defect in a product that the producer or intermediary produced or supplied. Section 3 defines a product as any movable object (løsøregenstand), whether processed or a natural product, including one incorporated as a component of another movable object or of immovable property. Section 3 extends the rules on products to electricity.

The Ministry of Justice's memorandum to Bill L 32 says that it has been unclear to what extent intangible products such as software are covered by the product concept of the Act. The same memorandum takes it that damage caused by a physical object that contains software is covered by the Act, whether the damage comes from the object or from the software itself. Section 2 covers compensation for personal injury and loss of a provider.

Section 2 covers damage to a thing only where the thing is by its nature ordinarily intended for non-business use and was mainly used that way by the injured person. Section 2 leaves damage to the defective product itself outside the Act. Section 4 treats as producer the person who makes a finished product, a part product or a raw material, and the person who puts its name, mark or other distinguishing feature on a product to present itself as the producer.

Section 4 also treats as producer the person who, in the course of its business, imports a product into the European Community for resale, hire, leasing or another form of circulation. Section 4 treats every intermediary as the producer where the injured person cannot establish who produced the product, or who imported it from outside the European Community.

That treatment does not apply where the intermediary gives the injured person, within a reasonable time, the name and address of the producer or importer or of the person who supplied the product to it. Section 5 makes a product defective when it does not offer the safety that can rightly be expected, taking account of all circumstances, in particular its marketing, the use that can reasonably be expected and the time it was put into circulation.

Section 6 makes a producer liable to compensate damage caused by a defect in a product that it produced or supplied. Section 6 leaves the injured person to prove the damage, the defect and the causal link between them.

Section 7 releases the producer where it proves that it did not put the product into circulation, that it did not make or circulate it in the course of a business, that the defect results from mandatory rules issued by a public authority, or that the state of scientific and technical knowledge when the product was put into circulation made the defect impossible to discover.

Section 7 also releases the producer where it must be assumed that the defect that caused the damage did not exist when the producer put the product into circulation. Section 7 releases the producer of a part product that proves that the defect results from the design of the product into which the part was incorporated or from instructions given by the maker of the finished product. Section 8 deducts DKK 4,000 when compensation for damage to a thing is fixed.

Section 10 makes an intermediary liable for product damage covered by section 2 unless it shows that the damage is not due to its own fault or negligence. Section 11 makes two or more persons who are liable under the Act for the same damage jointly and severally liable. Section 12 provides that the Act cannot be departed from by prior agreement to the detriment of the injured person.

Section 13 leaves the injured person's access to compensation under the general rules on compensation in or outside contract in place. Section 14, as rewritten by Act 523 of 6 June 2007, subjects claims for product damage to the limitation rules of the Limitation Act. The rewritten section 14 makes limitation of a claim against the producer under section 6 occur at the latest 10 years after the day the producer put the damaging product into circulation.

Act 523 of 6 June 2007 entered into force on 1 January 2008. The Ministry of Justice's memorandum to Bill L 32 states that the general limitation period under the Limitation Act is 3 years. Section 17 of the original Act brought it into force on the day after its publication in Lovtidende. Retsinformation dates the publication of the original Act, Act 371 of 7 June 1989, to 9 June 1989. Retsinformation shows the consolidated text, Lovbekendtgørelse 261 of 20 March 2007, as in force.

Bill L 32 would repeal the Act. Under the bill the present rules would keep applying to products put into circulation or into use before the new Act enters into force.