- British mobile phone suppliers are facing a billion-dollar
legal action brought by US brain tumour victims.
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- The lawsuits, to be launched by one of Americaís
most successful lawyers, are the biggest legal assault on the mobile phone
industry and will be the most extensive examination yet of claims that
radiation from mobile phones causes cancer.
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- Vodafone, the worldís biggest mobile phone company,
faces up to ten compensation claims, potentially for billions of dollars.
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- It is estimated that two thirds of all Britons now own
a mobile phone after about five million people bought mobile phones this
Christmas.
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- The cases will be filed by Peter Angelos, who recently
helped to win $4.2 billion (£3 billion) in damages from the tobacco
industry in Maryland.
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- John A. Pica, an attorney at Mr Angelosís law
firm, said yesterday: ìIf these companies knew about the dangers
of cellphone (mobile phone) radiation they should be punished and they
should be punished dearly: not only for what they did to the public, but
for the billions of pounds of profits they made.î
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- Mr Angelos, whose law firm earned nearly $1 billion in
fees from the Maryland tobacco industry settlement, is planning to launch
two of the claims before March, and the remaining seven or eight within
a year. They will be launched initially in California, Kentucky and Maryland.
Each claim will be filed against a mobile handset manufacturer, a mobile
phone network provider and a local ìland-lineî telephone company.
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- Mr Pica confirmed that Verizon Wireless, a joint venture
between Vodafone and Americaís Bell Atlantic, would be named in
nearly all of the legal actions. Verizon is the biggest mobile phone company
in the US, with 26 million customers. The cases could prompt copycat claims
in Britain and the rest of the world.
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- In each of his actions Mr Angelos intends to claim compensation
for the pain suffered by brain tumour patients, plus the income that they
lost as a result of the disease.
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- Mr Angelos is also seeking compensation for the families
of mobile phone users who have died from brain tumours, and punitive damages.
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- Mr Pica yesterday refused to guess the total value of
the compensation claims that his firm will make against mobile phone companies.
He said that individual state laws would govern how much could be claimed
in each case. He also said that even if the cases were successful they
might secure only a fraction of the amount claimed.
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- Telecoms companies have so far defended themselves successfully
against claims that mobile phones can cause brain tumours. This has not
prevented a succession of claims over the devicesí safety, mainly
from former engineers who claim that they were overexposed to radiation
from mobile phones through their jobs.
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- A spokesman for Vodafone said yesterday that he was not
aware that Mr Angelos had become involved in the landmark legal actions.
He said: ìThe Stewart report, the most comprehensive report of its
kind so far (in Britain), gave mobile handsets and base stations a clean
bill of health. But the link (between mobile phones and brain tumours)
is something we can never disprove. We need more research.î He added
that he was not aware of any similar legal cases in Britain.
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- If successful, Mr Angelosís actions could have
a devastating effect on the share prices of mobile phone companies. Companies
such as Vodafone are already under intense pressure from investors because
of the huge sums of money that they have invested in ìthird-generationî
mobile phone licences.
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- In Britain, mobile phone companies paid £22.5 billion
for five licences. These will allow their owners to launch high-speed Internet
services via mobile phone handsets.
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- Mr Angelos is also renowned for his ownership of the
Baltimore Orioles baseball team, which he bought with the fees generated
by his successful compensation claims.
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