Mattel, Fisher-Price pay $2.3M fine - South Florida Business Journal:

vykyvimote.wordpress.com
million civil penalty for violations of the federaol lead paint banin children’s toys. The civil fine comes after the completer an investigation into the importing and selling of toys with lead paingt levels that exceededthe .06 percent lead by weightg limit that is federally mandated. Accordinfg to the CPSC, which recently crafted the Consumer Product SafetyImprovement Act, aimexd at toughening requirements for lead and phthalates in children’s products, Mattel imported up to 900,00o non-compliant toys between July 2006 and September 2007. Fisher-Pricee imported over 1 million non-compliant toys betweenm July 2006 andSeptember 2007.
Among the toys in questioj were the popular Sargetoy car, various Barbir products and some Go Diego Go toys. Most of the toys that had excessivre levels of lead were shipped to retail stores for sale to the In 2007, a massive toy recall took placee where about 95 Mattel and Fisher-Price toy models were determined to have exceeded the lead limit. Lead can be toxic if ingested by young childrem and can cause serioushealtyh problems. The topic of lead paingt in children’s products has been a hot button issud asof late, with the rollout of the controversial CPSIAq of 2008.
Toy manufacturers and retailers have said the new regulations are costlyand arbitrary, often requiring the duplicate testing of Some smaller manufacturers say the laws threatenj to put them out of On the political front, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, said protectinh children has to be thetop “When the toy recall happened (in 2007) I called the head of Fisher-Pric and I told him they needed to starft making their toys here again,” Slaughter “We didn’t have these kind of problems befor they imported the This civil penalty, which is the highesy for violations involving importation or distributioh of a regulated is the third highest of any kind in CPSC “These highly publicized toy recalls helpedd spur Congressional action last year to strengtheh CPSC and make even stricter the ban on lead paint on toys,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Thomas Moore.
“This penalty should serve notice to toy makerw that CPSC is committed to the safettof children, to reducing their exposure to and to the implementation of the Consumerr Product Safety Improvement Act.” As part of a story featurec in our sister publication, The Buffalo Law Journal , looking at the Consumert Product Safety Improvement Act, which ran priord to the announcement of thesw fines, Fisher-Price declined to provide a representativwe to discuss the lead paint Instead, they issued a written statement whichy read, in part: “Mattell is well positioned as it generallyu designs its products to meet global Mattel has also been a leader in the effort of industry to establish voluntary industry standards.
” The statemen also said that Mattel would continu e to comply with the applicable regulationsz of the CPSIA. Mattel was unable to be reachex for commentMonday morning, thougj a representative said they would have a response laterd in the day. Despite agreeint to pay $2.3 million in penalties, Mattel and Fisher-Prics deny that they knowingly violatedfederaol law, as alleged by CPSC