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Asbestos Lawyers Meet In Liverpool For Asbestos And The Law Confereence

Lawyers who help people with asbestos related diseases are meeting in Liverpool to discuss the latest developments in their field of expertise.

Over 70 delegates attending the conference being held at the Maritime Museum of Liverpool will hear several speakers from the top of their professions updating the conference on recent court cases both in the UK and the US. One cosmetic company stopped selling its talcum powder in the US and North America last year due they said to the litigation they were facing in the US.

The conference will hear from Brendan Tully , leading New York Attorney of Simon Greenstone Panatier , whose attendance was arranged by Gill Owen at Slater and Gordon Solicitors.

He will be informing the conference of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung invariable caused by exposure to asbestos, in the US and the UK.

Brendan said :

“For decades, various brands of talcum powder products, including perfumed dusting powder, baby powder and face powders, contained dangerous levels of asbestos fibers. This hidden asbestos put normal consumers and families around the world at risk and created a serious public health issue.

Unfortunately, many labs across the globe, including health & regulatory agencies from different countries, are still finding asbestos in some products that sold today. This has to stop. I am so honored to join Merseyside Asbestos Victim Support Group to talk about this international public health issue, how it affects families in the United Kingdom as well as the United States, and discuss what was known, how it happened, and what can be done about it.”

The conference will also hear of the Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited (Cape) being forced to disclose its records which it had intended to destroy. The records were the subject of a Supreme Court ruling that has ordered them to be disclosed to the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum UK (the Forum) who have put the documents on its website.

Joanne Gordon Chair of the Forum said:

“The Forum is now demanding Cape make a donation of £10 million towards Mesothelioma Research. We believe victims and their families deserve this by way of an apology from Cape for their deliberate deception and shamelessly causing deaths, adding insult by vehemently defending cases.”

Harminder Bains, Partner at law firm Leigh Day added:

“Having fought on the Forum’s behalf for several years to secure access to these hugely important documents I felt revulsion and anger when I finally read through the documents to provide the summary of the key points. They clearly show that Cape knew of the high risk of fatal disease, yet deliberately withheld information and lobbied the Government to protect their profits. As a result of their greed many men and women including my father have lost their lives."

She then added:

" In addition, Cape and Concept 70 sought to prevent these documents from coming into the public domain by agreeing to their imminent destruction. This cover up would not have come to the light had it not been for the Forum’s persistence."

In conclusion Harminder said:

“Access to Justice would have continued to be denied if it were not for the fact that Counsel namely Robert Weir QC and Jonathan Butters and I were prepared to deal with the case pro-bono. There must be numerous other similar instances, where potential claimants are unable to obtain pro-bono legal representation hence corporations such as Cape escape justice”.

Contact the MAVSG: John Flanagan and Helen McKee on 0151 236 1895

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