Litigation Partner Jay Mayesh Discusses Chinese Drywall Settlement in the Associated Press

Associated Press reports that a class-action settlement in the Chinese drywall case is in the process of being approved by a federal judge. US District Judge Eldon Fallon must give his final authorization to five separate but related settlements between plaintiffs’ attorneys and Chinese drywall companies. The bulk of said settlements will be paid by Kaye Scholer client Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., which has pledged to repair the thousands of homes along the Gulf Coast that were affected by defective drywall.

Kaye Scholer Product Liability Partner Jay Mayesh, who is one of the attorneys representing Knauf, says that the company had “no way of knowing that its drywall was defective” before it was shipped to the US. "Nobody did anything wrong or could have foreseen what happened," he adds.

According to Mayesh, Knauf decided to settle the claims because it wanted to "stand behind its product.” He says, "Rather than stand on all of its defenses that this peculiar situation offered it, it decided to do the right thing.”