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By Tom Lowe2021-02-16T10:41:00+00:00
But UK sales manager says he was never given the instruction
Arconic ordered its French sales team to stop selling the type of combustible cladding installed on Grenfell Tower over a year before the West London fire, the inquiry has heard.
The hearing was shown an internal email on Monday from the firm’s French sales director Alain Flacon instructing French sales teams to stop recommending Reynobond PE, a type of ACM cladding, to customers because of fire concerns.
Reynobond PE, which contained a combustible 100% polyethylene core and had burned ferociously in fire tests, had been downgraded to a lower fire rating in 2014 which prohibited its use on high-rise buildings.
By Tom Lowe2021-02-16T10:51:00+00:00
But UK sales manager says he was never given the instruction
Arconic ordered its French sales team to stop selling the type of combustible cladding installed on Grenfell Tower over a year before the fire, the inquiry has heard.
The hearing was shown an internal email on Monday from the firm’s French sales director Alain Flacon instructing French sales teams to stop recommending Reynobond PE, a type of ACM cladding, to customers because of fire concerns.
Reynobond PE, which contained a combustible 100% polyethylene core and had burned ferociously in fire tests, had been downgraded to a lower fire rating in 2014 which prohibited its use on high-rise buildings.
A raging inferno : testimony reveals how deadly cladding ended up on Grenfell Tower
Public statements by Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan at times contrast what inquiry was told had been said in private
A volunteer helps place green hearts opposite Downing Street in memory of the 72 victims of the Grenfell fire. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
A volunteer helps place green hearts opposite Downing Street in memory of the 72 victims of the Grenfell fire. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
Wed 16 Dec 2020 03.00 EST
After the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, the companies that made the cladding reacted with horror.
The insulation manufacturer Celotex said it was “shocked by the tragic events”. The “rainscreen” maker Arconic was “devastated” and stressed that the causes of the fire were “not yet known”.