Already summoned to compensate thousands of victims, TÜV Rheinland, the German certifier of defective PIP breast prostheses, was ordered, Thursday, January 13, in France to compensate 1,600 new plaintiffs of twenty-three nationalities, for a total of ‘ at least 8 million euros, announced the association of victims PIPA.
These plaintiffs claimed 6,000 euros in provision for the damage suffered before the commercial court. They obtained 5,000 euros, much more than the 3,000 euros of provision allocated to the first victims.
TÜV is “Fully responsible without limitation or restriction and must promptly compensate all victims without exception”, responded Olivier Aumaître, PIPA’s lawyer. In a statement, the certifier, who should appeal, on the other hand “Strongly contested this judgment in that it retained the responsibility of the notified body”.
More than ten years following the discovery of the fraud of the Var manufacturer of breast prostheses founded by Jean-Claude Mas, whose death in 2019 put an end to the proceedings, legal proceedings continue once morest the German certifier, who no ‘had never noticed any shortcomings.
This scandal had erupted following an inspection by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products in March 2010. It had noted an abnormal rate of rupture of the implants which were filled, for reasons of economy, with non-compliant artisan gel in place of the required silicone gel.
Series of court decisions
This new decision is added to the cascade of judicial decisions in this case, close to its end. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal confirmed in February 2021 the judgment of the Toulon Commercial Court of January 2017 which ordered the German certifier to pay 3,000 euros to around 20,000 other plaintiffs. The Court of Appeal had nevertheless ruled that some 6,000 of them were ultimately inadmissible.
At the end of May, the Paris Court of Appeal had also confirmed the responsibility of TÜV in another aspect, restricting this responsibility however to the period from 1is September 2006 to April 6, 2010, thus rendering null and void the requests of several hundred women out of the 2,500 concerned, Colombians, Venezuelans and English in particular.
Conversely, two other courts of appeal, in Versailles and Poitiers, cleared TÜV Rheinland. The German company appealed to the Aix and Paris decisions. “There were four court of appeal decisions in 2021: two fully favorable, one fully unfavorable, in Aix, and a mixed one, in Paris. Today, there are several cases before the Court of Cassation and we hope that it will provide us with information to guide the judges ” on this file, reacted Christelle Coslin, lawyer of TÜV, questioned by AFP.
There are an estimated 400,000 women worldwide who have PIP implants.
TÜV Rheinland, a leading specialist in product certification, employs 20,000 people worldwide for a turnover of around 2 billion euros.
