Stop, it wasn't me. Hello, this is Reinhard von Hennigs. And this defense could be used in the total recall scenario, which now happens on Amazon's site. Amazon is facing a significant lawsuit from the United States consumer protection agencies. They filed a 24-page complaint and listed thousands of products, which they deemed to be unsafe.
So in other words, a total recall, but who is the proper person? Is it Amazon? Or is Amazon's no, stop, it was my defense, correct. Amazon never owned those items. They just shipped them or maybe they didn't even ship them. They provide a platform for third parties to sell their goods. Now, the consumer product safety commission, the CPAC in the United States filed a complaint listing that Amazon is forced to accept responsibility for recalling, potentially hazardous products, which are sold on amazon.com.
Amazon hit back and Amazon's defense that they removed those items which they were notified as no longer safe, but they do not have serious testing requirements to test all of their products. The question may be more complex, but if they are 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors, children's pajamas, which are not fireproof, hairdryers, which aren't properly insulated and create a short, it is a dangerous world out there.
But is Amazon liable? We may like, or we may not like Amazon, you may say, of course, they are liable. But, we need to analyze as lawyers, what is the legal theory under which Amazon is liable? I will analyze this complaint more and share more details as the case develops. But for now, if you are selling goods, which do not belong to you, and you are just a conduit if you're doing business in a similar way like Amazon, but you don't need to be such a big company, it could be that an American subsidiary of a foreign-owned entity is just selling products for their partner in Germany, for example. Are you liable for that?
The best way to avoid that is to have a very clear liability language included and also between the parties, make sure that the company who is providing the potentially unsafe product is internally liable. So those two documents may help you. Good luck.