Documents reveal asbestos manufacturer was aware of dangers

23 Mar 2022

According to documents released following a lengthy court battle, Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited – one of the UK’s biggest manufacturers of asbestos – alongside industry bodies that it co-founded, historically withheld information on risks posed by asbestos as early as the 1950s.

Documents saved from destruction thanks to a court battle waged by the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK showed that the company played down the dangers of the carcinogenic material, while lobbying the government for product warnings to be tempered.

The documents were obtained after the Forum commenced court proceedings against Cape following the 2017 case of Concept 70 Limited v. Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited (Cape) and provide extraordinary evidence that Cape knew the high risk of fatal cancer caused by the use and handling of Asbestos Insulation Board (AIB), trade name Asbestolux. The documents show the extent of the company’s interference with the Government’s regulation of asbestos in the 1960s and 1970s, stating that “a caution label on our products and none on [our competitors’] would make our selling efforts most difficult”. The Forum argues that this demonstrates that Cape, an asbestos products manufacturer, dismissed the idea of a warning label due to concerns about profitability.

They also state that in 1969, Cape’s group medical adviser accepted in a document that the fatal cancer mesothelioma could be caused by “short and possibly small” exposure and that “no type of asbestos proved innocent”. In the same year, a research review by the Asbestos Research Council (ARC), of which Cape was a founding member, accepted the link between asbestos and mesothelioma, stating: “Elimination of the dust hazard is therefore the only answer.”

Nevertheless, when Cape began to label its product in 1976 with a “take care with Asbestos” warning, it said “breathing asbestos dust can damage health”, but made no reference to the risk of mesothelioma, the documents show.

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops from the thin layer of tissue that covers many of the internal organs. The most common area affected is the lining of the lungs and chest wall. Mesothelioma is almost always caused by exposure to asbestos. It usually takes a while for this to cause any obvious problems, with mesothelioma typically developing more than 20 years after exposure to asbestos.

The documents were part of written material placed before the court in the legal action by Concept 70 and others who were trying to recoup compensation payments they had made to employees in asbestos compensation claims. Before judgment was given, the parties agreed in a confidential agreement to destroy the significant documents, so they would never come into the public domain, thus continuing to conceal the dangers.

Graham Dring, the then chair of the Forum, instructed Harminder Bains, partner at Leigh Day, to issue an urgent application to preserve the documents. His case then proceeded to the Supreme Court and set a legal precedent, allowing written material placed before a court to be seen by a non-party.

Having now studied the contents of the documents the key findings are as follows:

Cape encouraged its American partner Johns-Manville to suppress information on the health risks of asbestos and in the late 1950s the idea of a warning label on Marinite sheets was dismissed due to concerns that it would affect profitability.
Cape’s in-house sampling data show significantly higher dust counts than Technical Data Note 13 (TDN13) levels, even when just handling Asbestos Insulation Board (AIB), trade name Asbestolux.
Cape compromised the Government’s regulatory response to asbestos by lobbying the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) and succeeding in downgrading the regulation from a ‘no dust policy’ to a ‘maximum allowable concentration approach’. It then successfully lobbied to increase the proposed limits.
All the while, Cape adopted a policy of selectively sharing its sampling data with the BOHS, providing evidence of low dust counts and withholding the more damning surveys.
Cape lobbied the Government to water down the suggested approach to warning labels on AIB. Internal correspondence shows it campaigned to prevent other manufacturers from introducing warning labels on its own AIB/Asbestolux.
Cape provided misleading reassurance about the dangers of asbestos in its communications with the Government and the public, contrary to its own data as to dust counts and health risks of asbestos.
Despite the process by which the BOHS limits had been set, and the fact that they related to asbestosis, Cape engaged a public relations firm to publicly use the limits as a rebuttal against the risk of cancer/mesothelioma.
Cape publicly stated that there was no risk from handling AIB/Asbestolux, despite knowing the high dust counts in its own sampling data.
Cape continued to manufacture AIB/Asbestolux in 1980 contrary to defending court cases on the basis it had ceased manufacture in 1978.

Joanne Gordon, Chair of the Forum, said:

"The Forum is now demanding Cape make a donation of £10m 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. 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. 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."

A spokesperson for Cape said:

"Cape was taken over in 2017 and its current management cannot comment on this matter, based on historical events that occurred over 40 years ago. However, Cape remains fully committed to the scheme of arrangement that was put in place and approved by a UK court to provide compensation payouts and will continue to meet all its obligations associated with that scheme."