Update: Lumber Liquidators’ Toxic Flooring Case

A long-awaited update on how the SEC would weigh in on Lumber Liquidators selling toxic flooring…More specifically, the company has been accused of knowingly selling wood laminate flooring containing toxic levels of formaldehyde.

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What:

SEC charges Lumber Liquidators with fraud for hiding formaldehyde

Lumber Liquidators agreed to pay $33 million in penalties for misleading investors about formaldehyde in its laminate flooring products, the SEC announced…

The SEC said that Lumber Liquidators, one of the largest flooring companies in the U.S., knew that its largest Chinese supplier had failed third-party formaldehyde emissions testing. The SEC’s order also said that despite knowing that the people in the undercover “60 Minutes” report were factory employees of its suppliers, Lumber Liquidators falsely told investors that they were not.

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What else

In 2018, Lumber Liquidators paid $36 million to settle class-action lawsuits brought by customers who bought the laminate between 2009 and 2015. The company did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.

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Flooring Cancer Risk

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report in 2016 that raised its estimate of the cancer risk from formaldehyde in some laminate flooring to between 6 and 30 cancer cases per 100,000 people exposed to the flooring.

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