Companies

Chinese drywall enterprises facing US litigation

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-02-05 17:18

One article of the Associated Press pointed out the effect of the "stigmatization": George Brincku, 48, who bought his southwest Florida house in 2004, immediately began noticing an odd smell and the corrosion of wires and headaches. When he saw reports about Chinese drywall, he assumed the latter was the cause of the problems with his house — until he called the contractor who installed the drywall in question. Nevertheless, Brincku himself admits that he has "100 percent American-made drywall". Actually, there are many households using American drywall. However, the number of claims on Chinese products is much higher than that of American products. Another effect of "stigmatization" is that it "shields and filters" some other problematic drywall products. "All the media reports are about China, China and China," said George, who then proceeded to ask, "How many people give up claims just because they found that they were not using Chinese drywall and believed that their products were thus not polluted?"

US companies cannot avoid liabilities

Interestingly, George did not sue this US company. But the safety commission confirmed that there are several other legal charges against US drywall manufacturers. The US reports also stated that "US companies are also facing the same troubles even if complaints are fewer than those addressed to Chinese companies."

The cause of housing problems is complex. The gypsum board product, environmental factors, the way of use, construction methods, and even other building materials all may be related to the problems currently being observed. Concerning the dispute over Chinese drywall, experts believe that US legal proceedings should follow legal norms at every level to pursue the industry chain and each party should bear its responsibilities. It is unreasonable to neglect the value chain of the building materials in the lawsuits and point fingers only at Chinese manufacturers.

The current scenario is that US media have assigned all blame to "Chinese drywall" without solid evidence. Some politicians and media have gone as far as highlighting Chinese State-owned plasterboard enterprises, the industry leader, in an attempt to escalate the issue from simple product liability to a national level.

In the United States, product liability cases for plasterboard should include developers, contactors, distributors and importers as well as manufacturing companies and raw material suppliers. Developers, contactors, distributors and importers, as US companies, must ensure the products they use or distribute comply with US quality and safety standards. Also, regulatory bodies in the US have the duty and responsibility to implement appropriate product quality and safety standards and to oversee the implementation. Experts suggest that, because the US departments cannot prove that Chinese drywall does not comply with US quality standards, then the parties facing product liability lawsuits should be participants in the value chain rather than the Chinese manufacturers only. The drywall is produced in accordance with the relevant US ASTM standards and the requirements of US buyers. It is obviously uncommon to dump all the blame on the Chinese manufacturers for problems arising from imperfectness of relevant US standards and requirements. One officer of a Chinese plasterboard manufacturer said that all parties involved in the value chain should be jointly responsible. US enterprises cannot avoid paying compensation only because they are in a bad economic situation and lack funds. It is not acceptable.