Defective products, safety and product recall campaigns

When it stops being a warranty problem

A product that does not work properly is handled through the warranty. A product that can cause harm to the user or to a third party is something else: it moves into product safety and defective product liability, where the claim is no longer the replacement of a unit but compensation for harm and, potentially, action by the authority.

The first task of this service is to fix the criterion that separates the two scenarios and put it in the hands of the people who receive the claims, because they see the signal first: several similar cases on the same reference, a batch with the same fault, a complaint mentioning an injury.

The protocol worth having in advance

A recall decision is taken with incomplete information and under time pressure. What can be prepared calmly is the procedure: who decides, on what information and in what order notice is given.

• Detection. The signals that require escalating a claim, with concrete thresholds rather than general criteria.
• Decision committee. Who sits on it, who convenes it and how quickly it meets.
• Risk assessment. What has to be known about the product, the batch, traceability and foreseeable use before deciding.
• Scope. How to define which units are withdrawn and how to locate them once they are in the market.
• Notification order. Authority, distribution network, consumers, insurer and suppliers, with an owner for each front.
• Record. What is documented at each step, because that trail is the evidence that the company acted diligently.

When the case is already live

• We draft the consumer notice: which product, which risk, what the holder should do and where to go, in language that needs no further explanation.
• We prepare the communication to the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce and handle the requests that follow.
• We draft the instructions to the distribution network and the points of sale, including suspension of sales.
• We coordinate the position with suppliers and manufacturers, and check what the contract says about who bears the cost of the campaign.
• We review the policy and support the notice to the insurer within the agreed conditions.
• We review with the communications team what will be said publicly, so no statement contradicts the legal position.

Damage claims

When a consumer alleges the product caused harm, the case is built differently: the defect, its connection to the harm and the chain of responsibility between producer, importer and retailer all have to be established. We reconstruct the technical and documentary file, define the institutional position and take on the defence, whether before the authority or the ordinary courts. We do not promise outcomes: we offer an orderly case and a defensible position sustained from beginning to end. Where an insurer is involved, we coordinate the defence with the conditions of the policy, so the company does not compromise its own cover while answering the claim.

What the client receives

• The product safety and recall protocol, with owners, deadlines and forms.
• Escalation criteria for the team that receives claims, in a short and usable version.
• Templates for the consumer notice, the communication to the authority and the instruction to the distribution network.
• A review of supplier and manufacturer contracts on liability, costs and back-to-back warranties.
• Support throughout the campaign and a documented file of everything that was done.

Typical situations we handle

• The same fault repeats in one batch and the quality team does not know whether to report it.
• A foreign manufacturer announces a recall that reaches the Colombian importer.
• A consumer reports an injury and the company needs to know what to do in the next few hours.
• The authority asks for information about a product that is still on the shelves.