John Battle MP Advises Asbestos Victims To Ignore Federal Mogul Direct Appeal

John Battle, Labour MP for Leeds West, is advising asbestos victims to ignore a direct appeal to them from asbestos company Federal Mogul.

Federal Mogul have paid for newspaper adverts and are writing to each victim to get them to support a company plan drawn up in their headquarters in the USA which cuts out the lengthy process of winding up asbestos company Turner & Newall. The plan proposes to set up a trust to compensate asbestos victims, but it will be based in America and already it is clear that under US law US claims by potential victims will take precedence over the claims of actual victims in Britain.

John Battle said, “Even the administrators, Kroll Buchler Phillips, have expressed surprise at this direct appeal that bypasses them and their attempts to salvage compensation for the British victims – such as those in Armley. My advice is that it’s a waste of time responding to the American plan – we have to continue the fight with the administrators. Anyone who receives the voluminous documents sent with the plan should not respond.”

John Battle is to meet the administrators in London in September.

The MP campaigned for many years for compensation for victims of an asbestos factory in his constituency which closed in the 1950s but left a long term mesothelioma problem. Compensation for asbestos victims who had lived near the factory was finally achieved in 1995 but Federal Mogul stopped payments in 2001 following their acquisition of Turner & Newall and subsequent administration process.

©John Battle MP 25th August 2004