Ferrara: The Court of Justice of the European Union has clarified how Rome II product liability rules decide which country’s law applies when a defective component ends up in a machine, in a judgment of 5 November 2026 in Case C-344/25. The ruling answers questions from the German Federal Court of Justice in a dispute that began with poultry equipment installed in Italy.

The facts are unusually concrete. An Italian company bought six laying-hen battery systems from a German manufacturer. Five were routed through a Dutch buyer and one through a French buyer, with loading in Germany, and four units were then sold on to Italian companies and leased to the claimant. Assembly at the Italian site ran from July to December 2010, and repairs followed between September 2013 and January 2014.

The German courts had applied German law. The Landgericht Darmstadt dismissed the claim on 1 July 2020, and the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt dismissed the appeal on 17 December 2021. The Federal Court of Justice then asked Luxembourg what Article 5(1) of the Rome II Regulation means by the country where a product was marketed.

The Court of Justice held that the place of placing on the market has an autonomous and uniform EU meaning. It is not limited to the place where the product leaves the factory. It can be the place where the injured party buys the product from a distributor, or where a carrier delivers it. The Court also confirmed that Rome II product liability covers goods built into technical systems as components.

Applied to this dispute, and subject to the findings of fact of the German court, the reasoning points to Italian law, because the claimant was habitually resident in Italy, acquired the products there and suffered the alleged damage there. The Court declared two further questions inadmissible, including one about a fallback connecting factor and one about what counts as a product of the same type. The result means Rome II product liability analysis starts from the market, not the factory.

The practical effect reaches well beyond hen houses. Manufacturers of machinery parts, software-driven components and industrial equipment sell through long chains of distributors, and they can no longer assume that the law of the factory country governs liability for harm abroad. Lawyers advising exporters will need to map where each buyer actually acquires and receives the goods. Understanding Rome II product liability therefore becomes part of contract design and supplier audits.

For businesses and courts alike, the judgment gives a firmer anchor for cross-border claims. Rome II product liability now turns on where the product reaches the injured party in the market, a rule that protects buyers and removes the assumption that the law of the factory gate decides.