Thread by @PeteApps

Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

President of French company which sold cladding for Grenfell accepts company told a "misleading half truth" by concealing serious fire test failure from certifiers

Claude Schmidt has been grilled this morning mostly about the means by which Arconic obtained a certificate from the British Board of Agrèment regarding the fire performance of the panels used on Grenfell Tower:

(A note: BBA certs are widely used and very well respected in the construction sector as the authoritative statement on how products perform. Most building professionals + inspectors will simply take them on their word)

We saw a clip from the witness statement of another Arconic witness Claude Wehrle, which said the certificate was obtained "largely" for marketing purposes "to be better able to sell the products"

We saw the application form Arconic to the BBA, which showed the testing information Arconic provided. The Class 0 test referred to below was carried out on the 'fire retardant' version of the panel, not the pure polyethylene one (the certificate covered both)

We then saw the contract between the BBA and Arconic which had the following clause on testing, obliging Arconic to disclose 'any test data' relating to the product

But it appears the crucial 'test 5B' which was discussed yesterday and showed the panels burning 10x as fiercely when bent into a cassette form was never disclosed to the BBA. Mr Schmidt was repeatedly asked why.

His answers, in summary, were that he did not know exactly why the team involved had not done so, but that the BBA could have asked for the test data when it audited the panels and it would have provided the test if asked

We looked at English regs which show the standard for tall buildings can be either English Class 0 or European Class B. The 2005 test shows the panels falling very well short of this Class B rating. But Arconic only provided a test on a rivet panel, where it met this standard

Mr Schmidt denied that this concealment of the cassette test was deliberate, but did say the people dealing with the BBA for Arconic "probably didn't give the right information".

"Do you accept that in providing the rivet test only... Arconic was telling the BBA a misleading half truth?"

"Yes, you can say it like that," says Schmidt.

Asked if this was because doing so would have "cast serious doubt on the fire performance" of the product, Mr Schmidt said "I'm not sure really" and added that other competitors' certificates only referred to Class 0 and didn't refer to the European tests at all

Schmidt continues after lunch.