Pure economic loss and conclusion

Pure economic loss

The second area of liability law that has taken on considerably greater significance in the last few years is the liability for pure economic loss. This is partly due to changes in the lifestyle of many Europeans: While the acquisition of real estate still plays a major role in the way people invest their money and provide for old-age, investing in stocks is becoming more and more important.

The last few years have shown very clearly just how transitory the value of such investments can be and how necessary the protection of investors by stricter liability regulations is.

In addition, technical innovations of recent years have made it a lot easier for pure economic loss to take on greater dimensions, for example in IT-liability or regarding the liability of farmers planting genetically modified organisms. In both cases quite frequently there is no damage to persons or property, just a need to compensate considerable amounts of pure economic loss.

Lastly, the liability of attorneys, auditors, expert witnesses and (court-appointed) experts has also gained importance due to a greater readiness to take legal action to enforce claims. However, unlike the jurisdiction concerning the liability for medical malpractice, in theses cases the focus is usually more on precise formulation of the duties of care, not on extending liability.

Conclusion

The Europeanisation of liability law is still in its infancy, but it is nonetheless possible to identify some uniform trends:

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  The continual extension of liability
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  More and more overlapping of liability regulations by constitutional or EU-law
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  Growing significance of personal injuries and pure economic loss
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  Diminishing involvement of social law in day-to-day liability issues, accompanied by a renaissance of tort law.

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