On March 24, 1999, a Volvo truck carrying flour and margarine from Belgium to Italy entered the tunnel through France’s Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. Though no one can say precisely what happened next, one French investigation found that a lit cigarette butt may have bounced into the truck’s air intake, setting off a chain reaction that ignited the engine. The resulting inferno burned for 53 hours, reaching almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt the interior of the tunnel and incinerate three dozen vehicles trapped there. Thirty-nine people died in the fire, and the tunnel closed for three years for extensive repairs.

In Europe, “product liability claims are [filed] more or less never,” says Lars Lidman, general counsel at AB Volvo’s Volvo Trucks division in Gothenburg, Sweden. But given the scale of the Mont Blanc disaster, the international news coverage and the number of nationalities involved, Lidman knew this case would be different. After two rounds of court-ordered investigations, Volvo, the Italian and French tunnel operating companies and a dozen individuals faced two rounds of court-appointed investigations and a criminal trial for manslaughter in France. In July 2005 nine individuals and three tunnel operating companies were convicted; of the corporate defendants, only Volvo was acquitted.

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