The Impact of Automotive Standardization to Liability Risks Arising from Defective Software, Especially under European Law

Defects in Software applications (e.g. driver assistance systems such as steering or braking assistance systems etc.) may have disastrous impacts on the relevant OEM as well as on their suppliers: Defective products may not only cause personal deaths or injuries, but also result in recall actions, producing high costs and causing material damage to the image of all companies involved. If the supplier of automotive software delivers standardized software in source code, the OEM is able to modify and/or extend the software. Then also the OEM may create bugs in the software. We will point out which contractual and organizational measures have to be implemented to deal with these risks. We will also deal with the question if and to what extent it is necessary and/or sufficient to meet the requirements of technical norms, e.g. IEC 61508 or Working Drafts (e.g. ISO/WD 26262 ‘Road vehicles - Functional safety’).