A French businessman was convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday for filling tens of thousands of breast implants with industrial-grade silicone, but left the courthouse freely after lodging an appeal, meaning that thousands of women will have to wait longer to discover if they will receive damages.
The Marseille court presiding over the criminal case, which has all the trappings of a class-action lawsuit, ordered Jean-Claude Mas’ company, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), to pay up to 40 million euros (US$55 million) in damages to a fraction of the 125,000 women worldwide who received the implants.
However, the sum was largely theoretical because the company is bankrupt and because the appeal froze any efforts to find alternate sources of funding. It will be months, if not years, before any women see the money many say they need to remove the faulty implants.
Photo: EPA
In addition to his prison sentence, Mas was fined 75,000 euros.
His lawyer promised to appeal immediately and Mas left the courthouse without comment. The appeal freezes the jail term, fine and any damages awarded to the plaintiffs.
Four managers in the now-defunct Poly Implant Prothese received lesser sentences.
The decision established a complex system of damages for about two-thirds of the 7,100 women who joined the case, with a potential total of 40 million euros to be paid by those convicted. However, like Mas’ fine, it was not clear where that money would come from.
Further complicating any payments, the court also ruled that German product-testing company TUeV Rheinland, which cleared PIP for certification, was a victim of Mas’ deception, which officials said included falsified paperwork and a shadow production line.
A Toulon court last month ordered TUeV to pay damages to more than 1,600 women and six distributors for the implants. TUeV denies responsibility and has vowed to appeal, saying it was deceived by PIP.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said he had nothing to do with the Toulon decision.
“That will have to play out,” he said. “It is two interpretations.”
The PIP implants were filled with industrial-grade instead of medical-grade silicone and prone to leaks.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion