Legal prism — 2026-09-03

Under Article 6(1), an AI system is high-risk where it is a safety component, or itself a regulated product, covered by the legislation listed in Annex I and subject to third-party conformity assessment.

Under Article 47(1), that declaration must be kept available to national competent authorities for 10 years after the system is placed on the market or put into service.

Core issue

Although the timetable has shifted, companies are now in the classification and governance phase. Legal exposure depends on whether each AI use case is high-risk, who qualifies as the provider or deployer, and which unchanged 2026 obligations apply first. The precise legal question is whether an AI system falls within Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, in particular Article 6, Annex I, or Annex III. As a Regulation, it applies directly in every Member State.

• Under Article 6(2), AI systems listed in Annex III are high-risk, subject to the limited derogation in Article 6(3).
• Under Article 6(3), an Annex III system is not high-risk if it does not pose a significant risk to health, safety, or fundamental rights, although profiling always remains high-risk.
• Under Article 3(3), a provider develops, or has developed, an AI system and places it on the market or puts it into service under its own name.
• Under Article 3(4), a deployer uses an AI system under its authority, except in the course of a personal non-professional activity.

Legal assessment

The revised dates primarily affect sequencing, since the substantive obligations in the cited provisions remain structured around risk, role, and use. Companies must therefore map their AI systems before determining whether December 2027, August 2028, or December 2026 is most relevant.

• Providers of high-risk AI systems are subject to design and compliance obligations relating to human oversight under Article 14.
• Article 14(1) requires high-risk AI systems to be designed and developed in such a way that they can be effectively overseen by natural persons during use.
• Article 14(2) provides that human oversight must prevent or minimise risks to health, safety, or fundamental rights, including reasonably foreseeable misuse.
• Article 14(4) requires oversight measures enabling humans to understand limitations, monitor operation, avoid automation bias, interpret outputs, override outputs, and interrupt operation.
• Under Article 47(1), the provider must draw up a written EU declaration of conformity for each high-risk AI system, in machine-readable, physical, or electronically signed form.
• Under Article 47(4), by drawing up the EU declaration of conformity, the provider assumes responsibility for compliance with the requirements in Section 2.

Role allocation may change after procurement or integration. Under Article 25(1), a distributor, importer, deployer, or third party becomes a provider if it rebrands the system, substantially modifies it, or changes its intended purpose so that the system becomes high-risk. Deployers also have direct operational obligations where the system is high-risk and falls within the specified Annex III categories. Under Article 27(1), certain deployers must conduct a fundamental rights impact assessment before deploying relevant high-risk AI systems.

• The Article 27 assessment must describe the deployer’s process, intended period and frequency of use, affected groups, likely harms, human oversight, and internal governance or complaint mechanisms.
• Under Article 27(2), the obligation applies to the first use, and the deployer must update the assessment if relevant elements change.
• Under Article 86(1), an affected person may obtain clear and meaningful explanations from the deployer for certain decisions based on the output of an Annex III high-risk AI system.

National authorities are not confined to formal documentary checks. Under Article 79(2), where a market surveillance authority has sufficient reason to consider that an AI system presents a risk, it must evaluate compliance with the Regulation’s requirements and obligations.

Consequences

For manufacturers, the 2 August 2028 date is relevant only where the AI is integrated into regulated products such as medical devices, machinery, or vehicles. For software providers of standalone high-risk systems, 2 December 2027 is the principal deferred compliance date.

• A US company offering AI features to EU users may need to assess whether it qualifies as a provider under the Regulation.
• An EU company using a foreign-made internal tool may still qualify as a deployer under Article 3(4).
• A deployer that changes the intended purpose of a system may become a provider under Article 25(1).
• A compliant high-risk AI system may still trigger regulatory action if it presents a risk to health, safety, fundamental rights, or the protection of the public interest.
• Under Article 82(1), the authority may require the relevant operator to eliminate that risk without undue delay and within a period prescribed by the authority.

The immediate practical task is to establish an inventory, because hidden AI functionalities in platforms, products, updates, and vendor services may determine classification. Procurement, engineering, legal, quality, and compliance teams need sufficient vendor information to assess whether Article 6, Article 25, Article 27, or Article 47 applies. Businesses using image, video, chatbot, or generative tools face the nearest dated issue: 2 December 2026. The next expected step is internal classification and governance work before that date.

Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 requires packaging information not to be displayed together with information intended for sales or marketing purposes.

By 12 February 2030, implementing acts under Article 63 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 are expected to define minimum mandatory green public procurement requirements.

Core issue

Companies making green consumer claims now face a combined consumer-law and packaging-law framework, because the matter links the new Green Transition Directive with packaging compliance.

• The practical legal question is whether environmental marketing, packaging labelling, and public-procurement claims comply with rules on consumer practices and packaging sustainability.
• The key instruments are Directive (EU) 2024/825, Directive 2005/29/EC, Directive 2011/83/EU, and Regulation (EU) 2025/40.
• Directive (EU) 2024/825 amends Directive 2005/29/EC and Directive 2011/83/EU as regards empowering consumers for the green transition.
• As a directive, Directive (EU) 2024/825 is binding through national transposition.
• By contrast, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 applies directly in every Member State.

Legal assessment

Article 1(1) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 establishes requirements for the entire life cycle of packaging in relation to environmental sustainability and labelling.

• That rule is relevant to green claims because it governs the conditions under which packaging may be placed on the market.
• Article 1(1) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 also covers extended producer responsibility, packaging waste prevention, reuse, refill, collection, treatment, and recycling.
• Article 1(2) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 states an internal market objective: harmonising national packaging measures in order to avoid barriers to trade and distortions of competition.
• Where Union law requires product information to be provided through a data carrier, Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 requires a single data carrier for product and packaging information.
• The same provision requires product information and packaging information to be easily distinguishable.
• This creates a concrete compliance step: marketing teams must not merge required packaging information into promotional presentation.
• Article 6 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 addresses recyclability assessment and recyclability performance grades per packaging unit.
• It also refers to the modulation of financial contributions paid by producers for extended producer responsibility obligations.
• Article 10 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 preserves space for protected distinctive signs and geographical indications in specified packaging contexts.
• Its examples include wine under Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, spirit drinks under Regulation (EU) 2019/787, and quality schemes under Regulation (EU) 2024/1143.
• Public procurement is a separate pressure point under Article 63 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40.
• Such contracts are covered where packaging or packaged products exceed 30% of the estimated contract value or the relevant service-product value.
• The requirements may take the form of technical specifications, selection criteria, or contract performance conditions under Article 63(4) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40.

Consequences

For consumer-facing businesses, the immediate practical consequence is claim control across advertising, labels, data carriers, and packaging documentation.

• A green claim that depends on packaging recyclability requires substantiation aligned with the packaging-unit assessment structure in Article 6 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40.
• Required packaging information should be separated from sales or marketing material under Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40.
• Producers should also expect EPR-related financial contributions to interact with recyclability performance.
• For suppliers to public bodies, packaging compliance may become a tender-access issue, rather than merely a marketing issue.
• These requirements may affect technical specifications, selection criteria, and contract performance conditions.

The controlling legal rules identified in the evidence are federal preemption under the Clean Air Act and, for foreign producers, preemption under the foreign affairs doctrine.

New York designed the Act to raise approximately USD 75 billion through 2050, or about USD 3 billion per year, from fossil fuel companies.

Core issue

Fossil fuel companies currently face no enforceable payment obligation in New York under the Climate Change Superfund Act, because a federal judge held that the Act is preempted.

• The legal posture is both procedural and substantive: New York’s USD 75 billion funding mechanism cannot operate unless that ruling is reversed or otherwise superseded.
• The precise legal question is whether New York may require fossil fuel producers to bear a proportionate share of climate adaptation costs attributable to greenhouse gas emissions.
• No specific provision of the Clean Air Act is identified, so the analysis rests on the evidence that the Act empowers the EPA to regulate GHG emissions from fossil fuel facilities.

Legal assessment

• The payment mechanism was attribution-based: the cited research allegedly permits greenhouse gas emissions to be traced to specific companies over several decades.
• On that basis, the program would require companies to bear a proportionate share of climate adaptation infrastructure costs.
• The plaintiffs’ central challenge to the obligation was that New York was using state law to impose charges on companies for emissions occurring beyond New York’s borders.
• A coalition of 22 U.S. State Attorneys General, led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, argued that the Act could devastate traditional energy producers.
• Their constitutional theory was that federal law already occupies the relevant field because the Clean Air Act empowers the EPA to regulate GHG emissions from fossil fuel facilities.
• The U.S. Department of Justice later filed a similar action and supported the Attorneys General’s case in May 2025.
• U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes accepted the core preemption argument and characterized the Act as exceeding the permissible limits of state law.
• Her ruling means that New York cannot enforce the payment program while that judgment remains controlling.
• As to foreign fossil fuel producers, the court added a separate ground: compensation claims under the Act would be preempted by the foreign affairs doctrine.
• The evidence includes a judicial ruling but does not provide a case name; the operative authority here is Judge Brenda Sannes’s ruling itself.
• That ruling treats New York’s allocation of climate-related costs as entering an area in which the federal interest is dominant.

Consequences

For fossil fuel companies, the immediate consequence is that there is currently no enforceable duty to pay New York’s projected climate adaptation charges.

• For New York, the practical consequence is the loss of an expected funding stream of approximately USD 3 billion per year unless the ruling changes.
• For other states, the ruling is a warning that climate-cost recovery statutes tied to fossil fuel emissions may face preemption challenges under the Clean Air Act.
• For foreign producers, the litigation risk differs because the court relied not only on federal emissions law but also on the foreign affairs doctrine.
• Market participants should treat the Act as blocked, not merely delayed by administrative implementation.
• The ruling also strengthens challenges to similar state laws, because the evidence states that President Trump’s April 2025 executive order specifically identified New York’s law and a similar Vermont law.