Liability of an authorized dealer as “manufacturer”, when assembling an E-Bike, delivered disassembled by the original manufacturer (OLG Hamm, Germany - Product liability)

The OLG Hamm (Higher Regional Court) decided on
05.02.2016, that an authorized dealer shall not be deemed as manufacturer in
terms of § 4 sec. 1 cl. 1 ProdHaftG (German Product Liability Act), if he only
carries out (security-related) assembly-works. To fulfill the qualification as
manufacturer a dealer has to render a service, which leads to a product
responsibility. The dealer needs to have a certain degree of influence on the
product in matters of a constructional scope on the product. This requirement
is not fulfilled, if the dealer only assembles pieces of the product according
to the original manufacturer’s instructions, which has no impact on the
security and functionality of the whole product.

Additionally the authorized dealer in the court case
was not deemed to be quasi manufacturer according to § 4 sec. 1 cl. 2
ProdHaftG. For this requirement, he should have placed his name, brand or significant
symbol on the E-Bike. Otherwise there cannot be any outer perception of the
dealer acting as manufacturer, which could lead to a dealer’s liability in
terms of the German ProdHaftG. In this special case the dealer’s little logo
only appeared on the back mudguard of the bike and was placed there only for
advertising reasons.