No legal action yet over Fonterra scare

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Question marks hang over whether the eight customers affected by the Fonterra botulism scare might have a case for compensation, even though it later proved a false alarm.
Nutricia, the company that makes Karicare infant formula, said last week that it was considering legal action against Fonterra.
Others later issued statements saying they had not received the suspect whey.
Trade practice lawyers were reluctant to talk about the Fonterra case, but one said it was possible a company could seek legal action by arguing negligence or breach of contract.
Even those who had not received the suspect whey could have the basis of a case in defamation or fair trading law, if they had been named.
«You could say there was a misrepresentation of their product … because the damage is not from receiving a contaminated product, the damage is from being named and losing sales as a result of that,» the lawyer said.
Potentially there were grounds for a compensation claim, «but not particularly obvious ones unless more information comes to light.»
Earlier this month a commercial lawyer told Fairfax Media that Fonterra would freely offer compensation to the companies supplied with potentially contaminated whey protein concentrate, and it was unlikely they would have to sue for compensation.
Nutricia, which issued a recall of 67,000 tins of two types of infant formula, said this week that it had always been convinced that its product was safe.
«Indeed, all our testing – including additional testing since we were made aware of the issue – showed no evidence of botulism present in any of the products,» Nutricia’s general manager in New Zealand and Australia, Corine Tap, said.
Other companies affected included Coca Cola, Wahaha and animal products firm NZAgBiz, which issued a product recall for a calf milk-replacement product.
Fonterra publicly said that that the treatments Coca Cola, Vitaco and Wahaha used would have killed the suspected bacteria.
Vitaco Health Group, which uses Fonterra whey in its Aussie Bodies sports drinks, said it had used protein from one of the batches concerned but it had been processed at extremely high temperatures and was safe.
Guy Wills general manager of New Image Group and one of the biggest exporters of infant formula from New Zealand, said he hadn’t «even considered» the matter of compensation.
«We’ve just be focusing on the market at the moment,» he said.
«None of our products used the whey.»
The scare began after tests traced contamination to a pipe at a Fonterra plant was linked to three batches of whey, which were turned into 900 tonnes of varied food products sold by eight companies in seven countries.
Last week the Ministry for Primary Industries confirmed that the whey product contained Clostridium sporogenes, for which there were no food safety issues, instead of Clostridium botulinum.
 
Source:  Stuff

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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