Consumer safety and defective products: The Egyptian Consumer Protection Law and the French Objective Responsibility Act

Abstract

The present study sets out to examine whether the Egyptian Consumer Protection Law has contributed to creating a private legal system that provides all damaged parties with actual protection against safety defects. To address this issue, we adopt a comparative-analytic approach, through which the legal rules adopted by the Egyptian consumer protection laws and the French Law of the Objective Responsibility Act are analyzed and compared. Our findings indicate that consumer protection laws have failed to provide an integrated legal system for consumer protection against damages from defective products. Furthermore, the Egyptian legislator has only adopted the general rules, through which the consumer may be compensated for damages of defective products. These findings lend support to those of Grynbaum (2013) and Abuhelala and Al Khatab (2021). Accordingly, it is necessary to stipulate other rules concerning the objective responsibility for defective products; taking into consideration that the ultimate goal of individuals’ safety assurance against damages from defective products is a task of judicial oversight (Grynbaum, 2013; Abuhelala & Al Khatab, 2021).