Fear of more US suits as company settles over asbestos claim

The Australian reports the confidential settlement is believed to be about $250 000 and is expected to open the floodgates of potentially massive lawsuits against the company in the US. The US plaintiff has received compensation for exposure to Australian asbestos exports which were supplied to his company. The trust Hardie set up to cover its asbestos disease claims, the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation, secretly settled the US case in the past few weeks. Full report in The Australian

And in the UK, a High Court has ruled against insurers, including Norwich Union and British Shipbuilders, who were trying to stop paying compensation to workers who developed a lung condition after they were exposed to asbestos. However, the Newcastle court also cut the amount of compensation claimants receive for developing pleural plaques, a benign scarring of the lung lining, by around half after the test case which could affect thousands of other claims, reports The Scotsman. The 10 claimants were all men aged 56-68 from a cross-section of jobs such as boiler-making and shipbuilding, who said their employers were negligent in not protecting them from the fibres. Full report in The Scotsman