Monday, June 8, 2009

Mattel to Pay $2.3 Million Penalty for Toy Hazard

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Mattel Inc. and its Fisher-Price subsidiary will pay a $2.3 million civil penalty in an agreement with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for selling Chinese-made toys with hazardous levels of lead.

The fine, the commission’s largest for a toymaker, involves 95 toy models, from Barbie accessories to “Sarge” cars, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said today.

“This penalty should serve notice to toymakers that CPSC is committed to the safety of children, to reducing their exposure to lead and to the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act,” Thomas Moore, acting chairman of the commission, said in a statement.

Mattel, based in El Segundo, California, imported as many as 900,000 toys from September 2006 to August 2007 that violated rules on lead levels, the commission said. Fisher-Price, based in East Aurora, New York, imported as many as 1.1 million such toys, including Go Diego Go Rescue Boats and the Bongo Band, according to the commission.

Mattel “promptly took a series of steps after discovering compliance issues with some of our toys at that time,” the company said today in a statement. As part of the settlement, Mattel and Fisher-Price denied they knowingly violated federal law, as CSPC alleges, the consumer safety commission said.

The toymaker fell 11 cents to $16.35 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has risen 2.2 percent this year.

Elmo, Dora

Mattel recalled more than 21 million toys made in China, including Elmo Stacking Rings and Bedtime Dora, after they were found in 2007 to have lead paint or dangerous designs.

After the recalls by Mattel and other companies in 2007, Congress overhauled consumer regulations, effectively banning lead in toys, requiring the CPSC to hire more workers and boosting fines on sellers of dangerous products.

The lead-tainted toys contributed to debate in Congress over the safety of products imported from China, including milk products and the main ingredient in the medicine heparin. Chinese officials promised to improve oversight.

This article was written by Catherine Dodge and Allison Schwartz of bloomberg.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aDgBM4juwAbY

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Monday, June 1, 2009

Disney, tram-injured woman reach settlement

LOS ANGELES -- A Chinese woman who fell out of a moving Disneyland tram and suffered injuries that left her needing 24-hour medical supervision for the rest of her life has reached a settlement in a lawsuit she filed against the Walt Disney Co.

Lawyers for Qi Zhao and Disney reached the agreement Tuesday, bringing a two-week trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court to an abrupt end.

Details of the accord were not released.

Zhao, 48, filed her suit in 2007, alleging the tram driver was going too fast. She was riding the tram with two sisters and a niece. According to the complaint, one of the sisters fell from the King tram as it moved toward a parking lot.

Reacting to the fall, the other two sisters also fell out. One suffered minor injuries and Zhao hit her head on the pavement, suffering severe traumatic brain injuries and skull fractures and was in a coma for three weeks.

Her husband, Zuchun Wang, became a plaintiff last October, alleging loss of consortium.Zhao and her husband were born in China, but were living in Northern California when they visited the Anaheim theme park in February 2007.

Zhao is now being cared for in Beijing.Disney contended the tram was not moving too fast and had a device limiting its top speed to 11 mph.

Company officials said in a statement they were pleased to have resolved the case and said safety is their top priority.

The settlement came just as attorneys had begun their closing arguments. The judge told jurors of the resolution and dismissed them.

Zhao's two sisters settled their claims against Disney before the trial.

This article was provided by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-disney-tram28-2009may28,0,1892583.story

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