Inquiry under way into steel mesh testing

The Commerce Commission is investigating revelations a major building product manufacturer has been using false certificates for the last four years.

Steel & Tube's earthquake-reinforcing mesh has been wrongly certified as having been analysed by an accredited laboratory, when it was actually tested in-house.

"Making misleading representations - such as claiming a product was tested by a company that has not tested it - is prohibited under the Fair Trading Act," a commission spokeswoman said.

In-house testing was not in itself a problem, as it was a common practice and a valid way of complying with the relevant standard if done properly, she said.

As an active inquiry was under way, the spokeswoman said she was unable to comment further.

However, she said the commission was widening a separate investigation, into whether steel mesh supplied by a range of companies complied with the standard, to include more products.

Registered Master Builders Federation head David Kelly said the onus was on Steel & Tube to prove its product was safe.

"They need to move quickly to demonstrate the veracity of the product, and they need to contact all the people who were using the product, and potentially the consenting authorities."

Home Owners and Buyers Association president John Gray said there was no point having product standards without mandatory independent scrutiny.

"It's a little bit poacher-cum-gamekeeper in terms of the approach to the certification of these products," he said.

"We need a more robust system. We need more confidence in the products we are seeing across the board."

Steel & Tube was unable to explain why it took four years to notice the mesh was incorrectly labelled but maintained there was no problem with the mesh itself.

Shares in the company fell this morning after the test certificate issue was reported.

In early trading, the company's shares fell 17 cents, or 7 percent, to $2.24. It has since trimmed the fall, and was trading at $2.30 shortly after 1pm.

Steel & Tube said in a statement to the stock exchange it was fully confident its products complied with appropriate standards and its test certificates were not misleading.

Article courtesy of Radio New Zealand.  To view this article, click here.