December 26th, 2006

The trust fund company set up by troubled Aussie building materials manufacturer, James Hardie, has prepared plans to sue the Hardie Group in the event that a compensation trust fund deal for $1.5 billion is not approved by shareholders at a forthcoming meeting.

The trust fund foundation, which is the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation, is headed by a group of top corporate lawyers, and they have put plans in place to file a lawsuit against not only the Hardie Group but also individual former and current executives from the group in the event that the deal is not approved.

The MRCF was formed by Hardie in 2001, and it turned out that it was formed with a shortfall of around a billion dollars. Shareholders have already expressed concerns over Hardie’s intentions to pay asbestos sufferers even though the company has made statements that it is not legally obliged to do so.

Many people have been waiting for Hardie to set up some sort of compensation fund after its products, many of which were asbestos based, allegedly caused ill health and even death.