Government to pay asbestos victims

Government to pay asbestos victims

CSR Asia

21-22 September 2005

The Japanese government plans to make families of asbestos victims eligible for the same level of benefits as those available under workers' accident compensation insurance, reports the Asahi Shimbun (September 12). The families would be able to receive payouts even if they failed to apply for workers' accident insurance within the legal limit of five years following the victims' deaths, sources said.

The government decided in August to draft legislation to extend relief to such families as well as to others who have suffered from asbestos-related health problems. This would include people living near factories containing or using asbestos and factory workers' family members.

For the latter category of victims, the government plans to pay lump sums and to cover all expenses for related medical treatment. There is currently no system for such people to submit claims. In addition to workers' family members and residents in affected areas, a second group includes independent construction workers and business owners, who are not covered by workers' compensation.

The bill is expected to be submitted to an ordinary Diet (parliament) session next year. To finance relief measures, the government plans to seek contributions from asbestos-related businesses. The goal is to clarify the responsibility of companies that caused the contamination.

The government must also decide how to assign financial burdens to the private sector because responsibility extends to many sectors from producers to users. Burdens will be allocated by sector and individual companies based on the size of businesses and the level of responsibility.

However, many affected companies have gone out of business after restrictions on asbestos became stricter. As a result, existing companies would feel it unfair if they bear all the burden. Asbestos has been a hot topic over the past couple of months following revelations of hundreds of asbestos-related deaths among workers – and in some cases, their family members – who used to work with asbestos, used widely in the 70s and 80s.

Experts are warning that although the use of asbestos is being gradually phased out, construction workers may still inhale the substance when they repair or demolish old buildings, meaning asbestos-linked health problems will continue to be a hazard in Japan for many years to come.

Asbestos fears spread to residential roofing tiles

September 5 2005

South East Asian Occupational Health and Safety News

TOKYO: Health fears over asbestos deepened in Japan last week as a news report revealed that one in five houses uses roofing tiles containing the cancer-causing material.

As many as five million houses in Japan use tiles containing asbestos - a fibrous natural mineral that was commonly used as insulation and in other building materials, posing health risks to residents and neighbours when the tiles are damaged or the houses are demolished. The tiles in question include those made by machinery maker Kubota Corporation and Matsushita Electric Works.

The renewed focus on asbestos began in June when Kubota said 75 of its employees have died and 18 are receiving treatment for asbestos-related illnesses.

US Senate Panel OKs Asbestos Subpoena Power

Story by Susan Cornwell, Planet Ark

September 9, 2005

Washington - A Senate committee Thursday gave its leaders authority to subpoena information from companies facing asbestos lawsuits as lawmakers work on legislation creating a $140 billion fund for asbestos victims.

The unanimous voice vote gave Judiciary Committee leaders authority to subpoena information about how much companies would expect to contribute to the privately financed fund.

The panel's chairman, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, told members he did not know if subpoenas would be necessary, but he wanted "a little muscle" in case companies continued to resist producing the data.

Although the proposed bill has a formula for industry contributions, based on a company's size and prior asbestos expenditures, many companies are reluctant to discuss how it would affect them, saying the information could expose them to more lawsuits.

Specter said he hopes to bring the bill to the Senate floor the first week of October. Aides said the industry information could be used to make changes necessary to build Senate support for the bill.

Without the sought-after information, the bill is "in peril," committee Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn warned as he applauded the subpoena power authorization.

Specter and the ranking Democrat on the panel, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, have been seeking more data from the industry for months to answer colleagues' questions about the asbestos compensation fund legislation, which they are co-sponsoring.

Some senators in both parties say they cannot back the bill unless they know how much each company would pay into the fund. Some worry the costs will be unequally distributed or that there simply will not be enough money contributed to pay claims.

"The committee has been woefully underinformed about both the costs and funding of this bill," Cornyn said in a statement. "Without the necessary information, and without the ability to meet the funding requirements, this bill is in peril."

Asbestos, widely used for fireproofing and insulation until the 1970s, has been linked to cancer, and hundreds of thousands of injury claims have bankrupted dozens of US companies.

Specter and Leahy's bill, approved by the judiciary panel in May, would halt the lawsuits and pay claims from a fund financed by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers.

W.R. Grace Wants Trial Moved Out of Montana

By Carrie Johnson, Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, September 3, 2005

Six years of inflammatory press coverage has irreparably biased potential jurors in a conspiracy and environmental crimes case against W.R. Grace & Co., according to court papers filed yesterday by the company's lawyers arguing that the trial should be moved out of state.

The Columbia-based chemical manufacturer is scheduled to go to trial in Missoula, Mont., on Sept. 11, 2006, on conspiracy, Clean Air Act violation and other criminal charges. The company and seven of its current and former executives stand accused of polluting a Montana mining town with deadly asbestos fibers and conspiring to cover up what happened there for nearly three decades.

The death rate in Libby, Mont., where Grace mined and processed asbestos-containing vermiculite, and surrounding areas is 40 to 80 times higher than elsewhere in the state and the nation, according to an indictment against Grace unsealed in February. A rare type of cancer that normally occurs in nine in a million individuals shows up in at least 20 of the approximately 8,000 residents of the area, government lawyers maintain.

Defense lawyers for Grace yesterday petitioned U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy to move the case, arguing that a jury pool in Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis; Denver; Salt Lake City; or Seattle would be free from the bias that they say infects Montana residents.

A June survey of 2,008 citizens eligible for jury service found that 55 percent had already decided that Grace is guilty, according to Donald Vinson, an expert hired by the defense team. Vinson reported that 90 percent of the respondents who believe Grace is guilty held their opinions with "great intensity," court papers said.

Since the Seattle Post-Intelligencer first published articles about Libby's widespread asbestos contamination in November 1999, potential jurors have been exposed to nearly 2,000 newspaper articles, two books and two documentary films, the lawyers said.

The 28-page defense brief cites letters to the editor in local newspapers that call Grace "a corporate serial murderer" for its conduct in Libby and for environmental pollution in Massachusetts chronicled in the book and movie "A Civil Action."

The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001 because it faced thousands of asbestos claims across the nation, has denied wrongdoing.

So have its current and former mine managers, vice presidents and other officials charged with taking part in the conspiracy. Grace employs 6,000 people worldwide, including 1,200 in Maryland. The company reaped profit of $140 million from sales of contaminated products between 1976 and 1990, the indictment said.

Montana U.S. Attorney William W. Mercer did not return calls yesterday. Prosecutors will have several weeks to respond to the defense motion.

Defendants face a high bar in seeking to transfer cases to friendlier venues, legal experts say. Next year's fraud and conspiracy trial of former Enron Corp. leaders Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, for instance, will take place in Houston even though thousands of the city's residents lost jobs and pension savings when the energy trader collapsed in 2001.