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The court in Nanterre Thursday condemned TÜV, the German certifier of breast implants PIP, to compensate about 400 Swedish patients victims of defective implants, a decision that the company will appeal, it was learned from a judicial source.
The court ordered the compensation of each of the patients for 4,600 euros for various damages, plus the reimbursement of the operation, valued at 2,960 euros on average. This represents a total of approximately 3 million euros for TÜV.
This decision comes a little more than a month after a judgment of the Court of Cassation again referring the German giant to a court of appeal to decide his responsibility in the certification of defective prostheses.
"We welcome this fifth conviction of TÜV in this case," said the association Pipa, which brings together nearly 20,000 victims of PIP implants around the world.
"The big black spot is that there is no provisional execution of the sentence," lamented Olivier Aumaître, lawyer of Pipa. This measure would have required the certifier to pay the compensation immediately. "TÜV will appeal and it will take another two or three years" for patients to be compensated, regretted the lawyer.
The certifier's lawyer, Cecile Derycke, confirmed her intention to appeal and on the contrary congratulated herself on the lack of provisional execution: "this will allow for a calm debate on appeal", she declared.
She pointed out that the requests of 43 patients had been declared inadmissible "because they did not prove that she was wearing the prostheses concerned", and a 44th because her implants had been "posed in Colombia" and therefore excluded. EU.
"Many of the points made by the court are points that were not put forward by the plaintiffs", arguments that the company intends to replicate in the second instance, she added, ensuring that "for 8 years, we have decisions that are mostly favorable to TÜV Rheinland ".
In January 2017, TÜV had already been sentenced to pay 60 million euros of provisions to 20,000 plaintiffs by the Commercial Court of Toulon in another part of the case. The company also appealed this conviction.
"In the context of Implants files, confirmation of the responsibility of one of the main notified bodies in Europe reinforces our conviction," Pipa said in a statement.
TÜV is implicated in bringing pre-market certification of defective PIP prostheses. The certifier carried out thirteen checks at the premises of the French company between October 1997 and January 2010, without ever finding any breaches of the regulations.
In total, nearly one million defective breast prostheses were sold between 2001 and 2010 by PIP, regardless of any health standard, and the number of female victims in the world is estimated at 400,000.
Instead of an authorized gel, PIP used part of an industrial silicone normally used in the composition of electronic equipment.
Founder of PIP, Jean-Claude Mas was sentenced to four years in prison for aggravated fraud and fraud against TÜV. His company was placed in bankruptcy in 2010.
© 2018 AFP
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