Even more than individuals, companies are exposed to claims for damages from third parties who may be harmed by their activity. Not only are firms normally more creditworthy than private individuals, this increases the expectation of a settlement for injured parties, but they must be compensated for damages caused during their service by their employees (RC Committing) as well as damages attributed to their products (RC Products), even after delivery, or errors committed in the way their services were provided to their clients (Professional RC). A special case of corporate liability concerns goods entrusted by customers for repair or custody (RC Custodian)
Different rules apply in the case of contractual liability, related to the normal activity of manufacturing and selling products or supplies of services, and to tort liability unrelated to any contractual relationship with a customer. The contractual liability extends well beyond the direct customers of the company, since in the case of post-delivery CR, it covers the final user of the product regardless of the number of intermediaries and successive resales since the departure From the factory.
Courts and sometimes the legislature have shown a clear tendency to accommodate victims' demands more and more favorably and to protect consumers in the event of damages.
Exclusion or limitation of liability clauses in sales contracts are either prohibited or rendered ineffective by case law.
Sometimes, when the product was manufactured, it was surrounded by all the precautions possible at the time and it is only the later evolution of science or techniques that revealed the defect or the dangerousness of the product.