Insights

The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is an EU product cybersecurity law for connected products (formally, “products with digital elements” under the CRA) commercialized in the EU; it entered into force on 10 December 2024, with direct application across the EU. Full application begins 11 December 2027, but one of its most operationally demanding provisions takes effect in just under 100 days, on 11 September 2026: the mandatory vulnerability and incident reporting under Article 14 CRA.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently issued a landmark judgment in the LEGO Group case (C-211/24) concerning the scope of EU design protection for modular systems. This recent judgment addresses fundamental questions regarding the protection and enforcement of Community designs for modular products, specifically the LEGO Group’s iconic toy building blocks and parts:

The EU Institutions are currently adding the finishing touches to the new Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (“PPWR”) which is expected to be adopted in Q4 2024 or Q1 2025. While many companies are fully preoccupied with preparing for other EU legislation (e.g. the Deforestation Regulation) – companies will ignore the PPWR at their peril. The PPWR contains a host of ambitious legal targets and requirements – which industry will find it difficult to achieve in practice. And the deadlines to comply – are perhaps even more challenging. Companies will need to start preparing for the EU PPWR now, to avoid serious problems – including supply-chain disruption, penalties and litigation – in the future.

An inescapable part of marketing your (non-food) products consists of managing the risks caused by defective and/or non-compliant products. To deal with the legal aspect of this risk, economic operators must take measures prior to putting their products on the market as well as once the product has been commercialized.

For any company marketing a product, managing the risks associated with defective or non-compliant products is a key part of the process, both prior to and during commercialization. In particular, you will first need to determine which regulatory framework applies by mapping out the context in which the product is to be made available. Then, once the product has been placed on the market, you will need to know how to handle the various issues that could arise in relation to safety or regulatory non-compliance.