AUSTRIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Andreas Eustacchio, EUSTACCHIO
• draft and negotiate development, supply and dis - tribution agreements that allocate potential future liability for software defects and update duties; • advise on crisis management in the event of acci - dents involving automated or connected products, including cross-border co-ordination of possible recall actions; and • assist in the design of internal product safety committees and escalation processes that bring together legal, technical and compliance perspec - tives. Clients from non-automotive sectors, such as machin - ery, consumer goods, sports equipment, lifestyle products or food-related technology, are watching developments in the automotive field closely. Many of them are undergoing their own digital transformation, adding connectivity, apps or AI-based features to their analogue products. For these companies, the lessons from automotive are often directly transferable: soft - ware and data must be treated as central elements of product safety, not as afterthoughts. Outlook: Navigating Next-Generation Product Liability and Product Safety Looking ahead, two developments are likely to shape product liability in Austria and across Europe over the coming years. First, there will be increasing interaction between product liability rules and sector-specific regulation, particularly in automotive. Type-approval regimes, cybersecurity regulations, software update require - ments and AI-specific rules will all influence how courts understand the safety expectations that users may legitimately hold. For clients, this means that compliance cannot be managed in separate silos; reg - ulatory and liability perspectives must be integrated.
Second, the evidentiary environment is changing. Automated and connected vehicles generate large volumes of data, including logs, sensor recordings and event data records. In disputes, these data sets can be both an asset and a risk. Companies that man - age data retention and access in a structured way will be better placed to explain what happened in an incident, demonstrate compliance with safety con - cepts and, where appropriate, show that a defect did not exist. Conversely, a lack of data or inconsistent records can significantly weaken a defence. For clients operating in or entering the Austrian mar - ket, the key message is that product liability is no longer limited to obvious mechanical defects. Soft - ware, connectivity, AI and cybersecurity are now cen - tral to safety assessments, particularly in autonomous driving and other automated systems. A key precon - dition for the successful deployment and uptake of automated vehicles is public acceptance. In practice, this will largely turn on whether users’ safety expec - tations are fulfilled in a way that goes beyond formal compliance with regulatory and voluntary standards. Against this background, from a legal policy perspec - tive, product liability rules do not only allocate civil responsibility to the stakeholder causally involved in a defect. They also have an important preventive function. Together with the product safety rules, they incentivise robust safety concepts, a transparent allocation of responsibilities and effective incident- response mechanisms. By integrating legal, technical and organisational perspectives early in the design and development process, companies can signifi - cantly reduce the risk of future disputes, be better prepared when incidents do occur and more effec - tively meet the safety and trust expectations that will determine the commercial success of automated mobility solutions.
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