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Kingspan threatened legal action against NHBC for raising concerns over non-compliant insulation
Insulation manufacturer Kingspan threatened the country’s largest building control body with an injunction after it discovered issues with its flagship product and vowed to warn others about its faults, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry heard today.
Kingspan, which supplied insulation for Grenfell Tower, threatened an injunction against the National House Building Council (NHBC) after it became aware that the K15 Kooltherm product it had been using was not compliant with building regulations.
The NHBC sought clarification from Kingspan on the product after discovering conflicting marketing material on the product relating to its suitability for use on buildings taller than 18m.
After waiting for months for confirmation of the product’s suitability, the NHBC said it would have to start warning projects on which K15 had been used that it was non-compliant.
In response Kingspan instructed its lawyers to send a letter on 13 February 2015 to the NHBC saying it would seek a legal injunction under the Defamation Act 2013.
The letter read: “It is our client’s position that neither the NHBC or the market as a whole will suffer any detriment as a result of our client being given a further sensible period in which to demonstrate compliance.”
It gave a deadline of 16 February 2015 for a response and added that if it had not heard from the NHBC, “our client considers it will be left with no alternative to protect its position by applying to the court for an injunction preventing the NHBC from making the statements you propose in relation to the K15 boards”.
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Kingspan’s lawyers alluded to some further testing that was being carried out by the company and argued that this meant the NHBC had “no justification” for warning others as there was still potential for compliance.
Ivor Meredith, technical project manager at Kingspan at the time, who appeared for second day at the inquiry, said: “This is a very heavy-handed approach, isn’t it? I wouldn’t say that their position was unjustifiable.
“Kingspan had a story about the product’s ability to perform. But, you know, this is… this pushing back in some order, isn’t it?”
The NHBC would go on in 2016 to publish guidance saying that K15 could be used on high rises with various common cladding panels without even being justified by test data.
Earlier in the day the inquiry heard about Kingspan and Mr Meredith’s repeated attempts to achieve certification for the new version of K15, which spectacularly failed fire tests in 2008.
Kate Grange, counsel to the inquiry, highlighted a number of occasions on which Mr Meredith told clients that Kingspan was awaiting test results for K15 that could prove its compliance even though the Building Research Establishment (BRE) – responsible for evaluating the product – had already said it failed the tests.
Eventually on 1 May 2009 Kingspan K15 wrongly received certification for use on buildings taller than 18m from the Local Authority Building Control (LABC), which said it “could be considered a material of limited combustibility”.
Ms Grange said: “Kingspan knew, didn’t it, all along that K15 was not a material of limited combustibility; on the contrary, it was a combustible insulation, wasn’t it?”
Mr Meredith replied: “Yeah, definitely,” adding that the document was “very misleading”.
Despite this, internal emails on 7 May 2009 from Mr Meredith’s boss Phil Heath hailed the certificate as “great news” and just days later on 11 May demanded that testing of potential solutions to the defective insulation was stopped to focus resources elsewhere.
Mr Meredith said: “I remember at the time that I wasn’t over the moon about this because as far as I saw we still needed more testing. We were basing our story on some very flimsy LABC certificates.”
The inquiry also heard about the levels of stress that Mr Meredith was under in trying to achieve a result that would allow K15 to be used on buildings over 18m tall.
The inquiry learned that he was suspended in August 2015 after falling asleep on duty and driving a company car against management’s instruction. At the time he had been suffering from drug addiction and mental health issues.
Notes from his disciplinary meetings revealed the connection between his mental health and his work on Kingspan’s K15 product.
One note read: “Business put me in a very difficult position last year, it was doing my technical integrity no good + say that our product was ok, my mission was to derail the whole process + not much fun, pretend you are stupid.”
Transcriptions from his meetings also said: “We were outed by a consultant who we then had to fabricate a story to that the product still said what it did [on] the tin… we were stretching the truth here and what we are going into [was] an area… where we cannot support the performance of the product.”
The inquiry continues.
Update: at 9.50am, 25.11.20
The story was updated with the addition of dates to key documents and some further dialogue between Ms Grange and Mr Meredith.
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