Conviction in France for PIP prostheses | The company …

the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed this Thursday the responsibility of the German inspection and technical certification company TÜV Rheinland in the case of PIP fraudulent breast prostheses, for which he ordered the company to compensate hundreds of victims.

After more than a decade of contradictory convictions, the decision of the Paris court could pave the way for compensation for tens of thousands of female PIP implant victims around the world.

According to the judgment, the court ruled that the German company is responsible “for its shortcomings and abstentions in the respect of its missions and obligations in terms of quality system control” of PIP prostheses.

However, limited this liability to the period between September 1, 2006 and April 6, 2010. This means that among the approximately 2,500 women who joined the legal process, several hundred applications were deemed inadmissible.

One million fraudulent prostheses from the French manufacturer Poly Implant Prothesis (PIP) were sold worldwide between 2001 and 2010, many of them in Latin America. In turn, it is estimated that the number of casualties worldwide reaches 400,000 people.

The PIP company breast prosthesis scandal came to light in March 2010, when it emerged that it was using a silicone gel not approved for medical use in place of the licensed Nusil gel, which it claimed to use.

This is the first part of the case, known as “TÜV 1”, which then led to new lawsuits around the world by many women’s groups.

Those affected also include approximately 300 Argentine women who sued in 2013 the company PIP for 54.7 million dollars, Allianz Insurance Company and TÜV Rheinland.

It should be noted that the death in 2019 of Jean-Claude Mas, founder of PIP, signified the end of legal proceedings against the French company.

Ten years of waiting

“We are very satisfied with this decision, which definitively puts an end to the doubts about the responsibility of TÜV”, declared Olivier Aumaître, lawyer for some 20,000 victims, in a press release.

“After 10 years of waiting and hard fights, the German certifier will have to fully compensate the victims. It’s the end of the game after extra time and there will be no return or rematch possible, ”he added.

For her part, Christelle Coslin, lawyer for the quality assurance company, indicated that TÜV “takes note of the rejection of a large part of the complaints by the Paris Court of Appeal, but contests its decision by ruling it responsible, even if partially, to the notified body ”.

“This decision is in contradiction with the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in February 2017 and of the Court of Appeal of Versailles in January 2021”, he added in a press release.

TÜV was found guilty in 2013 of “failure to meet its control and monitoring obligations” and ordered to compensate six distributors and some 1,700 victims.

Despite this, two years later, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal reversed this judgment and released the German certifier from all responsibility.

In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned this decision and referred the case back to the Paris Court of Appeal.