GREECE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Dimitris Emvalomenos, Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners LLP
The Most Significant Legal Changes in Product Safety and Liability in Greece: AI, Collective Redress, Third-Party Litigation Funding, Consumer Rights, and ADR The legal regime applicable for product liability and safety in Greece is continuously changing, and is materially affected by legislative developments derived from European Union (EU) initiatives. The most signifi - cant of these developments are described below. Artificial intelligence (AI) The new digital technologies, and particularly AI, are the main drivers of the reform of the EU’s liabil - ity regime on products and related services. In this context: • a new PLD (Directive (EU) 2024/2853) to repeal and replace the current PLD (Directive 85/374/EEC, as amended by Directive 99/34/EC) was adopted on 23 October 2024 and it must be transposed by the EU member states by 9 December 2026; and • an AI liability Directive had been proposed by the European Commission on 28 September 2022 to adapt non-contractual civil liability rules applica - ble to AI and to ensure broader protection against damage caused by AI systems by alleviating the burden of proof in compensation claims pursued under national fault-based liability regimes – how - ever, the proposal was eventually withdrawn from the European Commission’s work programme for 2025 (presented in February 2025) as premature and with concerns over regulatory duplication with the new PLD. In the meantime, and since 2008, there have been widespread changes in vertical sectoral legislation affecting product safety, with notable examples being the regulation of medical devices and machinery, addressing the key issues of risk prevention, trans - parency and enforcement. The key aspects of the current PLD were designed with traditional products and business models of the 1980s in mind. With the progressive sophistication of the market since then due to new digital technologies, and particularly AI, the new PLD is now generally more expansive on:
• “damage”, extending it to medically recognised damage to psychological health and destruction or corruption of privately used data and removing the minimum claim threshold; • “products”, extending these to digital manufactur - ing files and standalone software, including AI (with limited exceptions); • the “producer” – including economic operators such as software developers, online marketplaces and fulfilment service providers; • simplified proof of “defect” and “causation”, with more detailed definitions and introduction of pre - sumptions and subjective criteria; • disclosure obligations of defendants connected with presumed product defectiveness; and • an extended expiry period of 25 years when a claimant could not initiate proceedings earlier due to latent personal injury. Also, the new PLD concerns and interrelates with: • the AI Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of 13 June 2024 (the AI Act), in force as from 1 August 2024 – the AI Act is the first worldwide set of AI rules, which follows a risk-based approach dividing AI systems into systems of unacceptable, high, and low or minimal risk (the key timeline for its application was set from 2 February 2025 until 2 August 2027); and • the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, which repealed the General Product Safety Directive 2001/1995/EC as from 13 Decem - ber 2024. Collective redress As of 26 June 2023, the EU legal landscape on col - lective redress, including the Greek regime previously applicable, changed following the entry into force of Directive (EU) 2020/1828 “on representative actions” (RAD), which was transposed into Greek law by Law 5019/2023 (Law 5019). Law 5019 modified Greek Law 2251/1994 on “Consumers’ Protection” as in force (Law 2251) by replacing its provisions on collective lawsuits (former Article 10 of Law 2251) and providing for the issue of numerous Ministerial Decisions which specify various aspects of the new regulation (Article 14 of Law 2251).
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