Article 15(1)(b) of the directive gives member states the option of adopting the development risks defence:
1. Each Member State may:
...
(b) by way of derogation ... maintain ... or provide in legislation that the producer shall be liable even if he proves that the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time when he put the product into circulation was not such as to enable the existence of a defect to be discovered.
As of 2004, all EU member states other than Finland and Luxembourg had taken advantage of it to some extent.
Read more about this topic: Product Liability Directive
Famous quotes containing the words development, risks and/or defence:
“The Cairo conference ... is about a complicated web of education and employment, consumption and poverty, development and health care. It is also about whether governments will follow where women have so clearly led them, toward safe, simple and reliable choices in family planning. While Cairo crackles with conflict, in the homes of the world the orthodoxies have been duly heard, and roundly ignored.”
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