PIP Breast Implants and Mass Torts in Europe

According to this article from CNN, French authorities have arrested Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of Poly Implant Protheses (PIP), in connection with alleged manslaughter and involuntary harm to a woman who died from cancer and had PIP breast implants.  The article notes that 300,000 women in 65 countries received PIP breast implants, and that questions have been raised about the use of non-medical-grade silicon and PIP went bankrupt in late 2010.  

The PIP breast-implants controversy may present an opportunity to observe non-U.S.-style mechanisms for what here would likely have been a mass tort litigation.  Since the PIP breast implants were not permitted to be sold in the U.S., litigation may be concentrated abroad.  In general, my sense is that the European approach is more reliant on criminal law than tort for deterrence, compensatory damages are limited because of the comparatively extensive governmental social insurance, punitive damages are unavailable, and class actions are traditionally not embraced (though class actions appear to be on the rise globally -- see, e.g., the Stanford Global Class Actions Exchange).

Interestingly, according to the article, one French woman who received PIP breast implants said, "Too bad we do not have a justice system like they do in the United States which allows the accumulation of penalties...because the small punishment he will receive for what he did to 300,000 to 400,000 women, is not much compared to what we have suffered because of him."

(H/t to my Mass Tort Litigation student Abigail Anderson for sending me the CNN story.)

BGS