Product Liability & Safety 2026

Modern Product Liability – Global Risks and Challenges

Product liability and safety regulation is undergoing a significant transformation. Across jurisdictions, companies are facing a more complex, fast-moving and fragmented regulatory environment, driven by rapid technological change, the growth of e-commerce and new business models, and the increasing prioritisation of circular economy and sustainability objectives. Together, these forces are reshaping what “product liability” means in practice, extending risks and responsibilities well beyond traditional notions of product safety.

Legal regimes are expanding in scope, complexity and reach, cutting across multiple policy areas and enforcement fronts. In recent years, long-running debates have crystallised into concrete reforms, requiring businesses to track and implement new requirements across multiple – and sometimes inconsistent – jurisdictions, often before guidance or standards are available. These reforms increasingly affect multiple functions within an organisation, complicating prioritisation and resource allocation, while the consequences of non-compliance continue to intensify, driving heightened litigation and enforcement risk.

Mounting pressure on regulators – combined with growing calls from governments and stakeholders for regulatory simplification – has led to last-minute delays, amendments and, in some cases, rollbacks of recent reforms. While measures intended to ease compliance burdens are often welcome in principle, their late introduction has frequently generated uncertainty and resulted in avoidable sunk costs for businesses.

Many companies are now recognising that legacy approaches to managing global product liability risk are no longer sufficient. As regulatory change accelerates and traditional principles give way to new models, the ability to anticipate emerging trends – particularly for products still in development – has become critical to protecting investment, maintaining market access and managing risk sustainably.

This guide is designed to support that challenge. It examines the key trends shaping product liability and safety regulation globally and provides jurisdiction-specific analysis to help companies navigate the evolving landscape.

New Technologies Front and Centre

Core concepts that have underpinned product safety and liability regimes for decades are being fundamentally reshaped. Legal frameworks are expanding beyond traditional physical products to encompass digital services and standalone software, and beyond risks of physical injury and property damage to include mental health harms. Liability is also increasingly extending to cybersecurity vulnerabilities, software updates (or their absence), connectivity failures and AI-driven functionalities, opening up new routes to claims.

Regulatory and litigation scrutiny of digital services and digital harms is expected to intensify. New regimes such as the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, alongside measures including Australia’s social media age restrictions, are sharpening focus on digital product design, platform accountability and user protection. In the USA, addiction-related litigation is gathering momentum, with some plaintiff firms characterising this as social media’s “tobacco moment”.

E-Commerce in the Spotlight

Many major markets have introduced reforms to address evolving marketing and distribution models, particularly the growing role of online marketplaces. However, the scale, speed and complexity of modern e-commerce – together with increasingly diverse online sales models – continue to fuel debate over whether existing regulatory frameworks go far enough.

Policy and enforcement attention on e-commerce is expected to intensify as jurisdictions reassess current regimes and develop new approaches. Alongside formal regulation, some authorities are promoting voluntary initiatives, such as the European Commission’s Product Safety Pledge+, which has had international influence and been endorsed by the OECD. At the same time, online marketplaces are increasingly being assigned a quasi-regulatory role, with enhanced obligations in some jurisdictions to monitor compliance, report safety incidents, and co-operate more closely with regulators.

Trade Tariffs, Geopolitical Tensions and Product Safety

Escalating trade tariffs and geopolitical tensions can materially increase product safety risk. Rapid shifts to alternative suppliers, new sourcing markets, or reconfigured supply chains – often undertaken at speed – can introduce new quality, compliance and safety vulnerabilities. As a result, companies are under growing pressure to balance cost and market access objectives against the need to maintain robust product safety governance and oversight across increasingly complex and dynamic supply chains.

Consumer Rights Activism

Consumer activism continues to intensify, with increasing scrutiny of right-to-repair practices, premature obsolescence, sustainability claims, subscription models and inadequate consumer disclosures. Expanded transparency obligations and regulatory reporting are generating richer data sets, making it easier for consumers, NGOs and claimant groups to identify and challenge practices perceived as unfair or misleading.

ESG: Changing the Landscape

In parallel, sustainability and ESG regulation is reshaping corporate risk through legally binding requirements focused on transparency, traceability and due diligence across the full product life cycle – from design and manufacture to use and end‑of‑life. As well as new obligations to integrate sustainability considerations into product design, companies are under growing pressure to identify, address and communicate on the environmental and human rights impacts of their business models through formal disclosures and direct regulatory engagement, including with customs authorities. This regulatory expansion is materially increasing liability exposure, both for underlying impacts and for misstatements or gaps in ESG‑related communications, enforced through public action and stakeholder‑led claims.

PFAS

The regulatory and litigation landscape around PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is evolving rapidly. In the EU, recent reforms have introduced upcoming PFAS restrictions for certain products (such as toys and food packaging), and the proposal for a near-universal EU-level PFAS restriction remains under consideration. A few EU member states have moved ahead with national measures rather than waiting for EU-wide action. In the USA, state-level regulation is intensifying in parallel with PFAS mass tort litigation. Companies across a wide range of sectors – from consumer products and textiles to electronics and food packaging – are facing increasing pressure to identify and eliminate PFAS from products and supply chains, with significant liability exposure arising from both legacy contamination and ongoing use.

The Move Towards Digital Compliance

Requirements for product information and customs procedures are becoming increasingly digitised. One example is the EU’s new framework for Digital Product Passports (DPP) to electronically register, process and share certain product-related information amongst supply chain businesses, authorities and consumers. This will be complemented by the EU Customs Data Hub, a single EU-wide system replacing approximately 111 national IT systems currently used by member states. Described as one of the largest digital data collections in Europe, the Data Hub is intended to support more targeted, intelligence-led enforcement through data analytics and AI, while providing a comprehensive overview of trade flows and supply chains. It will also introduce new reporting channels, allowing authorities, businesses and consumers to flag goods that fail to comply with EU legislation applied by customs authorities.

Beyond regulatory compliance systems, companies are also increasingly deploying digital solutions and AI applications within their own internal processes – from product design and quality assurance to supply chain management. The associated risks need to be understood and mitigated to reduce potential liability, especially where these tools inform high-impact decisions affecting product safety or regulatory compliance.

Continued Drive for Increased Enforcement

Enforcement of product safety rules remains uneven globally, but the overall direction of travel – particularly in Europe – is towards significantly stronger and more co-ordinated enforcement. The EU is increasingly moving away from fragmented national approaches, with enhanced EU-level powers for oversight, co-ordination and enforcement under regimes such as the Digital Services Act, the AI Act and the Customs Reform package. Further initiatives under discussion include the possible creation of an EU-level market surveillance authority and the conferral of investigative and enforcement powers on the European Commission in consumer law cases. In parallel, enforcement models are expanding beyond public authorities, with greater use of private enforcement mechanisms – for example through the EU Representative Actions Directive – empowering consumers to bring claims more effectively.

The UK is consulting on a once-in-a-generation reform of product safety regulation and enforcement. The proposals would consolidate enforcement powers currently spread across more than 70 pieces of legislation into a single toolkit and reduce reliance on criminal sanctions in favour of a broader, more flexible suite of civil penalties. These would include the ability for regulators to impose civil monetary penalties directly, accept enforcement undertakings, and require public admissions of fault or compensation, alongside new cost recovery powers and enhanced information sharing mechanisms.

Raising the Global Baseline

The international co-operation landscape is continuing to evolve. Some jurisdictions benefit from enhanced co-operation through established networks, such as the Organisation of American States’ Consumer Safety and Health Network, which brings together consumer safety authorities from 21 participating countries to share information, expertise and best practices.

In December 2025, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the first-ever UN Principles for Consumer Product Safety, affirming the right of all consumers to safe, non-hazardous products, including when sold online. The Principles emphasise businesses’ primary responsibility across the product life cycle and seek to strengthen public authorities’ ability to assess risks, order recalls, remove unsafe listings and share safety alerts across borders, within a flexible, non-trade-restrictive and sustainability-aligned framework. Influenced by the EU’s General Product Safety Regulation, this marks a significant milestone in the global product safety landscape and is expected to shape the development of national regimes, particularly in jurisdictions seeking to introduce or strengthen baseline protections.

Resources for Managing Changing Risks

The growing complexity of product law, combined with the speed and scale of regulatory change, presents significant challenges for manufacturers and suppliers operating globally. The costs of failing to anticipate and manage these risks can be severe, as many high-profile brands have discovered in recent years.

At the same time, these developments also create opportunities. Clear, proportionate rules – supported by more active enforcement – can help level the playing field and provide greater market stability for compliant businesses. For companies with strong brands and customer trust to protect, effective regulation can play an important role in safeguarding investment and managing risk.

The challenge is therefore practical: staying ahead of change, understanding its implications and building systems that are resilient over time. This guide, authored by leading practitioners worldwide, is intended to form part of the toolkit to help companies do just that.