Given the range and the number of claims awarded nowadays for disease from contact with asbestos dust, defendants (companies, individuals and other bodies) have in the main gone bust and insurance companies have long ago given up covering risks of this kind. The persons claiming would mainly have been working with asbestos in building, demolition, clearance of sites etc.
In any case, those who would be potentially liable would be those visible in hiring labour for these activities. Many of these would have gone out of business long ago and if not would be overwhelmed by the weight of these actions. In fact, many large and otherwise prosperous companies have gone under in this way or have made settlements which left them badly damaged.
“Class Actions” have been all the fashion. Local Authorities will have a statutory obligation to protect their assets including insuring them. It could be that Central Government would be the last resort – but they wouldn’t like it that liabilities had put the Authority in difficulties.
Companies etc have gone to great lengths to deal with the situation but have been mainly unsuccessful e.g., setting up offshore insurance companies and paying them premiums – but these were never going to be enough.
A government (of Quebec) acquired all of the going concern asbestos mines for £1.
The Vale View school has been built on unremediated brown asbestos:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0rCPnP5H9o
The council officers and councillors responsible for this – Schulz, Khan, Webb, Sager, Majothi, Lucas, Goddard, Derbyshire, Weldon et al – have probably bankrupted our town in the process, not to mention endangered the lives of a large number of young children and local residents.
