The Paris Court of Appeal has ordered the French marble manufacturer Marbrerie des Yvelines (MDY) to pay damages totalling 55,000 euros to the Almeria-based multinational Cosentino for defamation, due to the publications it made about Silestone worktops.
The ruling, consulted by EFE, partially ratifies previous procedures of other French courts and considers that the defendant has committed «acts of denigration to the detriment» of the companies of the company dedicated to the production and distribution of surfaces for architecture and design.
Thus, it ordered MDY to pay the costs of the appeal and 5,000 euros to Cosentino, as well as a further 20,000 euros in compensation for commercial damage and a further 30,000 euros for non-material damage caused.
The ruling states that in January 2017, the company MDY published on its website and social networks the results of several scientific reports from the Institut de Recherche et d’Expertise Scientifique (IRES) indicating that quartz «would expose consumers to serious health problems».
These publications were accompanied by several articles and videos distributed by the president of the MDY company.
Silestone slabs are a quartz agglomerate consisting of a mixture of silica sand, quartz and acrylic resins, a type of product of which Cosentino is one of the world’s leading producers.
In May 2017, the association A.ST.A WORLD-WIDE, to which the Almeria-based multinational based in Cantoria belongs, succeeded in getting the Versailles Commercial Court to order MDY to cease its complaints about the «use of synthetic quartz in countertops».
A decision that was subsequently appealed before the Versailles Court of Appeal, which annulled these measures in February 2018, to request in turn an expertise with the particular aim of investigating whether synthetic quartz worktops present a health hazard to consumers.
A.ST.A WORLD-WIDE, appealed against this new ruling, which was partially annulled in March 2020, and already a year later the Versailles Court of Appeal upheld the interim order, except that it ordered the publication of its provisions under penalty of penalty.
Later, considering that MDY was continuing its «campaign of denigration, and that it was now targeting Cosentino more particularly, the multinational brought an action before the Paris Commercial Court seeking compensation for acts of denigration and misleading commercial practices, which was settled in the company’s favour.
The court found that «in the name of the precautionary principle or the right of warning», MDY could not «aggressively disparage the component of the worktops sold by its competitor in order to promote its own products and thus divert the competitor’s customers to its own advantage».
The Court of Appeal states that «it is clear that the incriminating comments are very peremptory, pejorative and distressing», and considers that «the incriminating comments and messages, which exceed the limits of freedom of expression, disparage the synthetic quartz worktops manufactured and marketed by the Cosentino companies and are of a denigrating nature.»
«As the first judges pointed out, this denigration by the MDY company is associated with a communication in favour of its own sandstone or granite products presented as natural and, therefore, safe,» the ruling adds.
The Cosentino Group, a company dedicated to the production and distribution of surfaces for architecture and design, has valued this Thursday the sentence condemning a French marble manufacturer for defaming one of its star products, and stresses that «Silestone has all the necessary certificates to guarantee its safe use in its various applications», according to the ruling.
In a statement sent to EFE, the multinational based in Cantoria (Almeria) has stressed that, according to the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris, the company Marbrerie des Yvelines (MDY) and its manager have exceeded «all the limits of freedom of expression and that their only intention was to discredit the products marketed by Cosentino».
The company stressed that the ruling also states that «the defamation attributed to MDY is directly connected to a commercial interest in the sense of promoting its natural stone products as opposed to hybrid mineral surfaces».
«The Court of Appeal asserts that Silestone has all the necessary certificates to guarantee its safe use in its various applications», according to the multinational, which recalled how the Court of Appeal ordered MDY to compensate Cosentino a total of 55,000 euros for damages and legal costs.
«The company MDY and its manager, Philippe Ledrans, had disseminated several messages in the media and social networks claiming that the quartz agglomerates once installed posed a risk to the health of consumers,» the company explained.
«Ledrans even claimed on French TV that the ‘only difference with asbestos is that we don’t use asbestos to cook food, but we use this product (the hybrid mineral surfaces), which contains around forty harmful components, to make a cake, cut vegetables, fruit etc., which is what kitchen worktops are for’,» he concluded.