No compensation over faulty breast implants

Описание: (2 Jul 2015) A French appeals court ruled on Thursday that a German product-testing company does not have to compensate more than 3,000 women with leak-prone breast implants - and now women who sued may have to pay back 5.8 million euros (6.4 (m) million US dollars) in collective damages they received in a lower-court ruling.
Tens of thousands of women worldwide received implants made by French company PIP, or Poly Implant Prothese.
The implants were found to contain industrial-grade silicone instead of medical silicone and were prone to leakage.
PIP's owner was sentenced to prison for fraud, but his bankrupt company couldn't pay damages. So the women's lawyers sought compensation from German testing company TUV Rheinland and its French subsidiary instead.
A commercial court ordered TUV in 2013 to pay damages to women and six distributors, ruling that the testing company failed to properly check the implants.
But the appeals court in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence overturned that on Thursday. A court statement said that TUV and its subsidiary "respected their obligations incumbent upon them as certifying organisations."
The ruling says TUV couldn't have been aware of the problems with the implants, because of PIP's efforts to hide them.
A lawyer for TUV, Cecile Derycke, noted that in a separate criminal case against implant-maker PIP, the court found that TUV was a victim of PIP's fraud.
She said TUV was ordered to pay 3,400 euros each to about 1,700 women who joined the original lawsuit, and that Thursday's ruling "technically" means the women must now return that money to TUV.
She said TUV has not yet decided how it will handle next steps.

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