British women among 1,700 in line for minimum of £2,500 compensation after PIP breast implant court ruling | Mail Online
A French court today found German safety standards firm TUV liable in a worldwide scare over defective breast implants and ordered the company to compensate distributors and hundreds of victims.
The court in the southern city of Toulon ruled that TUV Rheinland had 'neglected its duties of checking and vigilance' after having certified that implants made by French firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) conformed to safety rules - even though they were subsequently found to contain substandard, industrial-grade silicone gel.
The scandal first emerged in 2010 after doctors noticed abnormally high rupture rates in PIP implants and gathered steam worldwide in 2011, with some 300,000 women in 65 countries believed to have received the faulty implants.
Victory: French lawyer Jackye Petitot (centre) speaks with unidentified plaintiffs in the courthouse of Toulon, which found German safety standards firm TUV liable in a worldwide scare over defective breast implants
Victory: French lawyer Jackye Petitot (centre) speaks with unidentified plaintiffs in the courthouse of Toulon, which found German safety standards firm TUV liable in a worldwide scare over defective breast implants
Colombian lawyer Nathalie Lozano (centre) speaks with unidentified plaintiffs
Colombian lawyer Nathalie Lozano (centre) speaks with unidentified plaintiffs after the court ruled TUV Rheinland had 'neglected its duties of checking and vigilance' after having certified that the PIP implants conformed to safety rules
Six distributors of the implants from Bulgaria, Brazil, Italy, Syria, Mexico and Romania sued TUV for a total of 28 million euros ($38 million).
Nearly 1,700 women who were fitted with the implants - most of them from South America but also from France and Britain - also asked the German firm for 16,000 euros each, taking the total claims against TUV to 53 million euros.
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