Concept of packaging liability – technical and legal analysis on the example of a case study

This paper examines the legal status of packaging, through the doctrine of the "integrated product", which considers technical defects of packaging, as strictly as defects of content itself. The contribution of the paper is in the finding of the legal inconsistency between the risk transfer mechanism defined by Directive 2011/83/EU and the conformity rules of goods from Directive 2019/771 especially in the context of specific risks of the "takeout" industry. The key contribution is the proposal to amend Article 20 of Directive 2011/83/EU by adding a new paragraph which would explicitly maintain the liability of the trader for packaging defects that existed at the time of delivery, so that the unfair consequence that the consumer is liable for factors that cannot reasonably be controlled after taking possession of the goods would no longer exist.