Tall & Urban News

Four employees of the company that manufactured and sold the combustible cladding used on the Grenfell Tower are refusing to give oral evidence to the inquiry into the 2017 fire.

France-based Claude Wehrle, Claude Schmidt and Gwenaëlle Derrendinger – as well as Germany-based Peter Froehlich – worked at manufacturing giant Alcoa, now known as Arconic, and were involved in selling Reynobond panels with a combustible polyethylene core for use on the Grenfell Tower.

But the four have refused to give oral evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, claiming that they could open themselves up for prosecution under the French blocking statute a French law restricting people from sharing commercial or technical information to establish evidence in foreign courts.

Richard Millet, counsel to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, suggested the reason—which was provided by Arconic’s solicitors DLA Piper, on behalf of the individuals —was less than convincing.

Neither Arconic nor any of those witnesses has provided any evidence that there is a real risk of prosecution under the French blocking statute if they did attend to give oral evidence to the inquiry,’ he told the inquiry on November, 2020.

"On the contrary, there are very sound reasons for thinking that the risk of their prosecution by the French prosecutor is very low indeed."

"Not only has there been, to our knowledge, only one successful prosecution under the French blocking statute in the 51 years since that statute was enacted, but it is hard to think that the French prosecutor would wish to punish individuals for giving evidence before a public inquiry in an erstwhile EU member state looking into a notorious fire in which so many were killed.

"And that is all the more so where those witnesses have extremely pertinent evidence to give about the product principally implicated in the rapid and fatal spread of the fire," he added.

Millet said the inquiry was unable to compel the Arconic workers to give evidence because the legal mechanism for doing so – serving a notice under Section 21 of the Inquiry Act – cannot be applied to non-UK residents.

Two UK-based Arconic employees, represented by different solicitors to their overseas colleagues, have both agreed to give full oral evidence in spite of any risk associated with prosecution under the French blocking statute.

They are Deborah French and Vince Meakins, who were both Alcoa’s UK sales manager at different times during the Grenfell Tower refurbishment.

Millet said that if the non-UK-based Arconic employees did not turn up to the inquiry, he would spend four days going through company documents and witness statements they submitted to "tell the story of Arconic’s role in selling their ACM polyethylene panels to the UK construction industry and particularly those involved in the Grenfell tower refurbishment."

Counsel to the inquiry concluded his statement by saying he can "only urge Arconic and its witnesses to do the right thing and come and assist the inquiry," adding: "If they seek to stand on their strict legal rights and refuse to come to give evidence, that is a matter for them.

"They may find that the bereaved, survivors and residents [of Grenfell Tower], other core participants [of the inquiry], and indeed the public generally, take a dim view of their conduct regardless of the legalities.

"Doubtless, Arconic would have considered the impact of its witnesses refusal to give evidence on how they are viewed in the world beyond this inquiry, and in particular by the market both for their own products and the financial markets."

For more on this story, go to Architects' Journal.