By Louis Goss
Johnson & Johnson is set to face a class-action lawsuit brought forward by high-profile Houston litigator Mark Lanier’s new UK-based firm.
The Houston litigator’s new law firm is launching a British class-action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson over claims the New Jersey pharma giant’s talc products caused UK customers to develop cancer.
The lawsuit is set to claim that thousands of British people may have developed cancer due to being exposed to asbestos in J&J and other pharmaceutical companies’ talc products.
The launch of the collective action lawsuit follows the launch of Lanier’s new Manchester based law firm last month.
It comes after Lanier’s Houston headquartered law firm – the Lanier Law Firm – previously won a $4.69bn payout from J&J in 2018 over claims the pharma firm’s talc products had caused 22 women to develop ovarian cancer.
The US trial lawyer’s new UK firm – Lanier, Longstaff, Hedar & Roberts LLP – is now set to launch a British collective action lawsuit against J&J, following its multi-billion-dollar payout from the New Jersey firm.
Lanier’s new UK firm is set to argue that pharmaceutical giants, including J&J, continued to sell products to British consumers, despite having known about the presence of asbestos fibres in those products for decades.
“Companies have made many millions from the sales of its talc, and we believe there are many more victims, including in the UK, who deserve justice for having their lives cut short by these terrible and incurable cancers, which could so easily have been avoided,” Lanier said.
Lanier has previously led a series of high-profile lawsuits against some of the world’s largest companies, including German pharmaceutical company Merck and British oil major BP.
The lawsuit comes after J&J in August announced plans to stop selling talc products in all markets worldwide by 2023. At the time, the firm said in a statement that its “position on the safety of our cosmetic talc remains unchanged.”
J&J has been approached by City A.M. for comment.
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