I know it’s been a LONG time since I had an update – slllllllowly wind the wheels of justice.
Anyway, here’s what I know.
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The Bonsoy class action had a directions hearing last Friday in the Supreme Court. As part of the orders made, the case has been referred for mediation, which must happen by end of October this year.
As you may (or may not) know, Spiral Foods brought (joined) the Japanese manufacturer (Marusan-ai) and exporter (Muso) into the court case, claiming that they supplied Spiral with bad product. In the defences that the manufacturer and exporter filed, they say that Spiral contacted them in mid-2006 and asked about iodine levels in Bonsoy because of a query by a concerned consumer.
The manufacturer tested Bonsoy and found that it had pretty much the same iodine levels as were found at the time of the recall – ie very high. They say that those test results were then provided to the exporter and to Spiral Foods.
So it looks like the problem existed for years and at least as far back as 2006 Spiral knew exactly how much iodine Bonsoy contained.
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My comment: what this to me at least shows, is that Spiral has a case to answer. They pretty much knew that Bonsoy was high in iodine as far back as 2006. It’s my understanding the original query to the manufacturer was triggered by an ill consumer.
This poses the question: if Spiral asked for an iodine level test, due to a query from an ill consumer, and were informed that the product was high in iodine, wouldn’t this raise some serious concerns in Spiral to try and mitigate any potential issues?
I will have more news as it comes to hand.
Written on
September 14, 2011 by
admin in
News
I received a letter from Maurice Blackburn today; apparently everything is moving apace. Many of you who are joined to the action would also have received it.
Slowly move the wheels of justice.
We refer to our previous update letters and write to further update you on the progress of this class action.
Court process status
The defendant, Spiral [...]
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I’ve received an update on the class action from the lawyers, here we go!
There was a case management conference/directions hearing on 11 March 2011. Everything there was done by consent and we now have a timetable for the next few months.
Where the proceeding is basically at is:
We filed our statement of claim.
Spiral filed their defence.
There [...]
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Source: Maurice Blackburn
Hundreds of Australians have been made sick by Bonsoy milk containing high levels of iodine with over 300 contacting law firm Maurice Blackburn.
In late September, Maurice Blackburn issued proceedings on behalf of 25 people nationwide and now 293 more have come forward with 155 of these people joining the class action. A Brisbane [...]
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Thanks to the two people who sent this in to me.
I’ve uploaded the article as a pdf, downloadble here [113kb pdf].
Basically the article confirms the high levels of iodine in Bonsoy (refer table 2, page 3 of pdf) – 25,000-27,000 micrograms (ugrams/L) of iodine per litre.
Compare this to other soy milks which range from 15-30 [...]
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I’ve received a few emails thanking me for the website and to help get the action going, or at least get it in people’s minds.
Firstly, thanks to those people for emailing me.
Secondly, thanks to everyone who shared the personal – sometimes heart-wrenching – personal stories in post/page comments, or by emailing me (some were understandably [...]
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Sorry for the delay in getting this up, I was in NZ for a wedding as the class action was launched last week.
I’ve had LOADS of emails from people asking if they can join, and how.
Maurice Blackburn have provided the below information for posting to you all. Please contact them before emailing me for [...]
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Just a quick update on the progress of potential legal action against Spiral by Maurice Blackburn. I received this email this morning:
Hi Tim,
To keep you up to date – I’ve been contacted by about a dozen of your readers and have got a decent cross-section of the possible damage out there. I’m hoping that a [...]
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I’ve been contacted by a lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who is doing some pre-work on a potential class action. At this stage the work is an information gathering exercise only, but it’s good to see someone collating all the information.
Given what you have all been sharing, there is real potential here for people to recover [...]
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I had an email from Jade the other day, asking what she can do about recovering costs from Spiral Foods.
Firstly, I’ll re-iterate that unless you’ve suffered permanent damage (heart, thyroid, etc) or had something serious happen (like a pregnancy complication), you’ll only really be able to claim time off work, medical (and similar) expenses and [...]
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