Abstract Archive

After hours of deliberation, the long-awaited verdict of the Court of Assizes in Novara, Italy was handed down on June 7, 2023 to a hushed courtroom. The regional court found that Swiss asbestos billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny was guilty of the aggravated manslaughter of 147 residents and factory workers from Casale Monferrato who had died as a result of exposure to Eternit’s asbestos fibers. He received a 12-year prison sentence and was banned from holding public office for five years. The Court recognized the right of civil parties to claim compensation in separate civil cases, but also awarded provisional damages to various civil society groups, government bodies, organizations and named plaintiffs. [Read full article]

Update from Novara Asbestos Trial

Sep 16, 2021

At the Novara Court of Assizes this week, prosecutors began to present the case against Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, charged with voluntary manslaughter for 383 deaths caused by exposures to Eternit asbestos in Casale Monferrato. Evidence from two witnesses was heard on September 13. The first to testify was Nicola Pondrano, Eternit employee, union official and founding member of an asbestos victims’ association: AFeVA. Pondrano provided first-hand testimony about horrendous conditions at the factory and the lack of warnings to the workers as well as the hazard posed to family members and local people. Albino Defilipp, from the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection Piedmont, informed the court about the ubiquity of asbestos contamination throughout the region. [Read full article]

Déjà Vu: Stephan Schmidheiny in the Dock

Jun 15, 2021

On the morning of June 9, 2021, asbestos victims, their relatives and supporters again made their way to an Italian courthouse to bear witness: another day, another trial against Stephan Schmidheiny. The former CEO of the Swiss Eternit Group is facing charges of intentional homicide at the Assizes Court of Novara over hundreds of asbestos-related deaths in the town of Casale Monferrato including those of 62 former workers and 330 members of the public killed by exposure to Eternit’s asbestos. In the last decade, the Swiss billionaire has been charged by public prosecutors in various Italian jurisdictions with murder, manslaughter, aggravated culpable homicide, causing permanent environmental damage and failing to comply with safety rules. [Read full article]

Schmidheiny in the Dock, 2020

Nov 13, 2020

Events scheduled to take place this month (November 2020) mark the continuation of a 50-year battle to obtain justice for Italy’s asbestos victims. On November 27th yet another trial against Swiss asbestos billionaire Stephen Schmidheiny will commence. In the last decade, public prosecutors have launched legal actions against the defendant charging him, in various jurisdictions and at different times, with murder, manslaughter, aggravated culpable homicide, voluntary homicide causing permanent environmental damage and failing to comply with safety rules. Although guilty verdicts against Schmidheiny were vacated by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2014, asbestos claimants remain optimistic that the defendant will finally be held to account for the damage done and heartache caused to so many Italian families. [Read full article]

Stephan Schmidheiny in the Dock: Again!

Jan 28, 2020

A small victory was achieved on January 24, 2020 in the long-standing battle to get justice for thousands of Italian asbestos victims when a Court in Vercelli in northern Italy ordered that Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, former owner of the Swiss Eternit asbestos group, face charges of voluntary murder (“omicidio volontario”) for the asbestos-related deaths of almost 400 people from the town of Casale Monferrato, the site of an Eternit asbestos-cement factory. The trial was scheduled to begin on November 27, 2020. Legal actions against the same defendant are also being pursued in other Italian jurisdictions over asbestos-related deaths of Eternit employees and local residents. [Read full article]

Italian Asbestos Deaths: New Conviction

May 24, 2019

Five years after the Italian Supreme Court had vacated murder verdicts against the Swiss asbestos billionaire Stephen Schmidheiny on technical grounds (2014), the defendant has once again been found guilty of the asbestos deaths of Italian citizens. On May 23, 2019, a Turin Court sentenced Schmidheiny in absentia to four years for the involuntary manslaughter of two individuals from Cavagnolo, both of whom died from asbestos-related diseases. Other trials are proceeding against Schmidheiny who is facing charges of voluntary homicide in hundreds of cases in Naples (8 deaths) and Vercelli (392 deaths including those of 243 individuals who worked at the Eternit factory in Casale Monferrato). [Read full article]

Mobilization of Italian Asbestos Victims

June 20, 2017

On June 8, 2017, an international asbestos conference was held in Bologna, Italy, an area with a high incidence of asbestos mortality due to hazardous exposures in the railway industry, at asbestos-cement production facilities, at a local plant which manufactured waterproofing materials and at power stations. Representatives of asbestos victims’ groups from Italy and Brazil updated delegates on progress achieved and challenges remaining in the struggle for asbestos justice. Trade unionists, scientists, an author, a teacher, a Mayor and campaigners – including Dr Agata Mazzeo whose PhD dissertation focused on the fight for asbestos victims’ rights in Brazil and Italy – also made presentations. [Read full article]

EterNOT not Eternit!

Sep 19, 2016

On September 10, 2016, the world came to Casale Monferrato, a small Piemonte town which has become a symbol of the global struggle against asbestos tyranny. On a day of celebration and remembrance, the community marked a new future with the inauguration of the EterNOT park built on the former site of the notorious Eternit asbestos factory. Separated by distances great and small, campaigners for asbestos justice sent tributes to show their solidarity with their Italian allies. Opening the proceedings, Mayor Concetta Palazzetti referenced the global solidarity on display at the front of the chamber and named the associations from Latin America, Asia, Australia and Europe which had sent messages of support. [Read full article]

A Day of Renewal and Remembrance

Sep 10, 2016

Today, the community of Casale Monferrato, for decades the symbol of the struggle for asbestos justice, will mark a landmark event with the dedication of a park built on the infamous site of the Eternit asbestos cement factory. The Eternot Park is not only a memorial to the asbestos dead but also a symbol of a future which can be free of the deadly dust. Campaigning groups from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia have sent a statement – the English version of which is text of this article – with floral tributes expressing solidarity and support for the victims, the activists and the community. (Click here for Italian version.) [Read full article]

Italy’s Hope and Glory

Aug 2, 2016

On July 21, 2016, the news finally came. Italy’s Constitutional Court issued its ruling in the long-running battle to achieve justice for Italy’s asbestos victims. The verdict gave the green light for a second round of legal proceedings (Eternit BIS) against Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, former owner of the Swiss Eternit asbestos group. The case will now be returned to the Turin court where an investigating magistrate will consider the Public Prosecutors’ accusations regarding hundreds of asbestos deaths in Casale Monferrato and other Italian cities. After decades of broken promises and shattered expectations, asbestos victims and the groups representing them have been given hope that justice will be done. [Read full article]

Global Asbestos Hegemony; Global Asbestos Crimes

Feb 15, 2016

On May 31, 2016 the Italian constitutional court will hand down a verdict in a criminal case of immense importance. At issue is whether Swiss asbestos billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny can be held to account for the asbestos deaths of Italian citizens. Central to the defense is the concept of double jeopardy whereby a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime. Schmidheiny has been tried three times for Italian asbestos crimes and convicted twice. The guilty verdicts were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2014 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Schmidheiny is now facing manslaughter charges for hundreds of asbestos deaths; there is no statute of limitation for this crime. [Read full article]

Italian Asbestos Verdict Due on Friday!

Jul 20, 2015

On July 24, 2015, Judge Federica Bompieri will hand down an eagerly awaited decision to a court in Turin, Italy. She will decide whether or not to comply with a request from Public Prosecutors for a new criminal trial against asbestos billionaire Stephen Schmidheiny. Although Schmidheiny had been found guilty by lower courts of causing a permanent environmental disaster as a result of which thousands of Italians died, these verdicts were overturned by the Italian Supreme Court (Court of Cassation) in November 2014 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In the new case, the defendant is facing charges of manslaughter, a crime for which there is no statute of limitations. [Read full article]

Italy’s Asbestos Mystery

Jan 14, 2015

Italian Public Prosecutor Raffaele Guaraniello, who was at the center of the historic criminal prosecutions of former asbestos businessmen for the deaths of thousands of Italian citizens, is now investigating reports of asbestos imports into Italy in 2012 despite the fact that the country banned asbestos a decade previously. The existence of this illicit trade was unearthed by Mohit Gupta from the New Delhi-based Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India. In 2012, India exported 1,296 tonnes (t) of asbestos, 1,040t (80%) to Italy. Other importers of Indian asbestos-cement products include five countries which have also banned asbestos. [Read full article]

Postscript to the Great Asbestos Trial

Feb 18, 2014

The second anniversary of the verdict handed down by the Turin Court, in what has become known as the Great Asbestos Trial, was an appropriate time to review the Court’s decision as well as subsequent developments in the litigation. Despite a determined attempt by the defendants in this landmark case to overturn the verdicts, the judicial authorities have twice confirmed the criminal conviction of asbestos defendants who had caused wilful permanent environmental disaster and failed to comply with safety rules as a result of which thousands of Italians died from asbestos-related diseases. [Read full article]

2013 Appeal Verdict in the Great Asbestos Trial

Jun 3, 2013

Today (June 3, 2013) in Turin the Appeal Court upheld a 2012 landmark asbestos verdict and upped the prison sentence handed out to Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny from 16 to 18 years! Defendants Stephan Schmidheiny and Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne had appealed guilty verdicts they received for their parts in the asbestos deaths of thousands of Italians. The death of the Belgian Baron vacated the criminal case against him and Etex, the company of which he had been a director. However, the case against Schmidheiny and the Swiss Eternit Group proceeded. [Read full article]

Launch of Italian Asbestos Plan

Apr 10, 2013

In response to a public health emergency, the Italian Government has launched a National Asbestos Plan. Tens of millions of euros have been provided for medical, epidemiological, clinical, environmental and technical research to address the consequences of asbestos contamination. Work is proceeding on new diagnostic and treatment protocols for patients with malignant mesothelioma. Experts from the University of Alexandria and the University of Turin are collaborating on plans to create an organizational model to provide a continuum of care for the injured. Research on risk assessment, health surveillance, genetic susceptibility and the efficacy of biomarkers is also being progressed. [Read full article]

Eternit and the Great Asbestos Trial: Appeal Proceedings

Jan 31, 2013

Further Hearings will commence on February 14, 2013 in the case which has become known as the "Great Asbestos Trial." Hundreds of pages of legal argument submitted to the Turin Court challenge first degree guilty verdicts handed down one year ago by a three-judge panel to defendants Stephan Schmidheiny and Baron Louis de Cartier. Neither one of the former asbestos executives, both of whom were convicted for their part in the causation of an Italian asbestos disaster, has complied with court orders to pay compensation to thousands of victims, associations, municipal authorities and civic bodies. [Read full article]

Great Asbestos Trial: Post-Verdict Developments

Jul 17, 2012

The landmark judgment handed down on February 13, 2012 by the Turin Criminal Court continues to reverberate in Italy and abroad. On July 16, 2012, it was reported that Schmidheiny's legal team submitted a 500-page appeal which looks to overturn the verdict on grounds of constitutionality, jurisdiction and statute of limitations. Two weeks earlier, the Turin Public Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello announced he is calling for the sentences to be increased from 16 to 20 years. Even as this case winds its way through the Italian legal system, the interim court-awarded payments remain unpaid. [Read full article]

Italian Government takes Asbestos Safety and Care Concerns to EU - International Research Network Ahead?

Apr 25, 2012

The Italian government is calling for the creation of an EU-wide network of asbestos-related disease (ARD) centres of excellence. The idea was discussed privately between Italian health minister Renato Balduzzi and the EU commissioner for health John Dalli on 24 April, during this week's summit of EU health ministers in Horsens, Denmark. But the conversation is now set to result in a formal proposal at European Commission and EU member state level, according to the Italian health ministry. EU commissioner Dalli is said to have pledged his full support for Professor Balduzzi's ideas. [Read full article]

Clarification of Turin Judgment

Feb 22, 2012

In the aftermath of the Turin verdict of February 13, 2012 condemning asbestos defendants Stephen Schmidheiny and Jean-Louis de Cartier de Marchienne for their part in the asbestos deaths of thousands of Italians, many questions are being asked about the details of the 128-page ruling. Lawyer Sergio Bonetto, who represented some of the Italian asbestos victims in this case, provides clarification regarding several issues of immediate concern including the timetable for payment of damages, the options open to recover those damages and the likely progression of the case through the Italian judicial system. [Read full article]

Landmark Victory for Italian Asbestos Victims!

Feb 20, 2012

On February 13, 2012, Eternit defendants Stephan Schmidheiny and Jean-Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, were convicted by a criminal court in Turin of causing permanent environmental disaster and failing to comply with safety rules as a result of which thousands of Italians died from asbestos-related diseases. The European industrialists were sentenced to 16 years in prison and financial penalties of €90 million were imposed by the Court "jointly and severally" on them and the companies named in the lawsuit. The verdict was warmly received by Italian campaigners who had battled for over three decades for justice for Eternit's asbestos victims. [Read full article]

IBAS Eternit Monograph Released as Verdict in the Great Asbestos Trial is Announced

Feb 11, 2012

On February 13, 2012, a Turin Court will announce the verdict in a criminal case brought by Italian prosecutors against former asbestos executives who are charged with causing permanent environmental disaster and failing to comply with safety rules for their part in the running of asbestos-cement factories in Casale Monferrato and other Italian cities. The Public Prosecutor is asking for 20-year jail sentences. The courtroom will be packed with Italian victims, family members and ban asbestos campaigners from all over the world, all of whom will be waiting with baited breath for the verdict to be pronounced. [Read full article]

A New Year in Casale Monferrato

Jan 4, 2012

The furore set off in 2011 by asbestos defendant Stephan Schmidheiny's attempt to make a deal with the town of Casale Monferrato showed no sign of abating as the year drew to a close. Into the breach stepped Italy's Minister of Health, Renato Balduzzi, who himself phoned the Mayor on December 21 to set up meetings for January 1. Discussions on New Year's Day with key stakeholders has led to plans for a coordinated plan by national agencies, local authorities and federal bodies to tackle the country's asbestos emergency. In the meantime, the deadline set by Schmidheiny for signing the deal has expired. [Read full article]

Update from Casale Monferrato

Dec 16, 2011

Tonight the Casale Monferrato town council will rubber-stamp a deal commonly called the "pact with the devil." Despite massive opposition from Italy and abroad, the politicians will accept an offer from a former asbestos executive on trial in Turin over an epidemic of deaths caused by asbestos contamination. Although a deadline of December 31, 2011 had been set for the agreement to be finalized, it seems council members can't wait to comply. Asbestos victims, campaigners, trade unionists, representatives of labor federations and church officials are appalled by the underhanded behaviour of the Mayor and his colleagues. [Read full article]

Justice for Sale?

Dec 15, 2011

For over thirty years, the citizens of Casale Monferrato, Italy have been struggling with a deadly contamination which has blighted their lives and their town. To obtain justice for the thousands who have died, asbestos victims, trade unions and labor federations have worked closely with town officials and prosecutors to progress legal actions against the guilty parties. These efforts have been pivotal in the recently completed trial against two former asbestos executives. Now, one of the defendants in this trial has made the town council of Casale Monferrato a multimillion euro offer to withdraw from the legal proceedings. [Read full article]

Surprise Moves by Schmidheiny's Lawyers

Nov 26, 2011

Stephan Schmidheiny's legal team is engaged in a series of behind-the-scenes negotiations with officials from 12 Italian municipalities to secure their withdrawal from an on-going case and future cases against him over his alleged responsibility for hazardous asbestos exposures to workers, local people and the environment in towns where asbestos-cement production took place at Eternit factories. An offer, which was kept secret from asbestos victims, trade unions and labor federations, made to the Mayor and council of Casale Monferrato has caused consternation amongst the victims and their family members who have called on the authorities to honor their commitment to the injured. [Read full article]

Eternit on Trial

Nov 24, 2011

Eternit, an international asbestos conglomerate, prided itself on its dominance and control of national asbestos debates. Recent European court cases have exploded the company's myth of invincibility. The trial of two former Eternit executives in Turin has now concluded after two years and 66 hearings; the verdict is expected in February 2012. Next week (November 28), a decision will be announced in a Brussels court in the case brought by the family of Francoise Jonckheere, who was environmentally exposed to asbestos whilst living near the company's factory in Kapelle-op-den-Bos. [Read full article]

Making Waves and Noise in Turin

July 17, 2011

Eternit executives might do well to study the current evolution of the British scandal surrounding the global news empire run by Rupert Murdoch. It seems that once the tipping point is reached, as it was with the revelation of the phone hacking by a journalist of the mobile belonging to a murdered teenager, no corporation is invulnerable. The ongoing trial in Turin of former Eternit executives may very well be the tipping point in the corporate legacies not only of the former Eternit multinationals but also of other Eternit companies around the world still manufacturing asbestos-cement products. [Read full article]

A Town in Mourning, a Town Reborn

May 3, 2011

To the casual traveller, the Italian town of Casale Monferrato might appear idyllic. Alas, appearances are deceptive for at the heart of this community is a man-made cancer which has destroyed lives and decimated the landscape. Casale Monferrato is town betrayed by asbestos and by the greedy industrialists who foisted this carcinogen on workers and townsfolk indiscriminately. The social disaster which Casale Monferrato has suffered has transformed the entire population into citizen-activists. Young and old, working class and middle class, everyone has been mobilized; everyone has a thirst to see justice done. [Read full article]

Former Executives Jailed in Italy

Apr 30, 2010

On April 26, 2010 it was reported that former executives from a Sicilian shipbuilding company had been convicted of negligent homicide after the asbestos-related deaths of 37 former workers. The three executives from the Fincantieri company were sentenced to prison terms of three years to seven and a half years and ordered to pay several million euros in compensation to the injured workers or surviving family members. The company continued to use asbestos until 1999, even though Italian legislation adopted in 1992 had banned its use. [Read full article]

The Day of Reckoning: Eternit on Trial

Mar 22, 2010

A series of meetings which took place in Turin, Italy on March 14-16, 2010 brought together asbestos victims' representatives, ban asbestos activists, legal practitioners and other experts from Europe, Latin America and Asia to exchange information about the negligence of multinational companies belonging to the global asbestos giant Eternit, and to develop strategies for providing practical assistance and information to Italian prosecutors currently involved in legal proceedings on behalf of thousands of claimants injured by occupational or environmental exposure to Eternit asbestos in towns such as Casale Monferrato. [Read full article]

Eternit on Trial!

Jan 28, 2010

The timetable set for a trial into the asbestos-related deaths of thousands of Italians, dubbed the Great Asbestos Trial, is bizarre. As hearings are only being held on Mondays from 9 a.m - 2:30 p.m., it is anticipated that the first part of this trial will last "at least 2 years." This scheduling will ensure that most of the seriously ill people on whose behalf this action has been mounted will have died before a resolution is reached. [Read full article]

Eternit Pre-trail Maneouvre

Mar 11, 2009

In the run-up to the biggest legal action to be held in Turin, an offer has been made to some members of the class action by a company representing one of the accused. A preliminary investigation of this out-of-court settlement reveals that while it breaks new ground by extending compensation to include local residents from Casale Monferrato as well as former Eternit employees, the amount being offered is derisory. The proposal was made without any consultation with the victims or those representing them and excludes claimants from other towns which were polluted by Eternit asbestos. [Read full article]

Italian Case Against Eternit

Jan 26, 2009

On April 6, 2009, a preliminary hearing into the Eternit Group's allegedly negligent behavior in exposing Italian citizens to asbestos will begin at the Palace of Justice, Turin. This is the culmination of years of research and preparation by Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello and his team who are mounting the largest legal action to be held in Turin on behalf of nearly 3,000 former Eternit employees, family members and local people who have contracted asbestos-related diseases. [Read full article]