Reuters has continued to investigate the fires caused by Beko fridge freezers and the events surrounding the tragic fires. The investigation seems to indicate that Beko dropped the ball on notifying its customers and that Beko didn’t act within EU guidelines.
Reuters correspondent Tom Bergin has investigated the actions of Arcelik, the parent Turkish company of Beko that made the fridge freezers that the London Fire Brigade pointed to as a possible cause of fires. Mr Bergin found that there seemed to be inconsistencies in the company’s version of events.
“What I found interesting was uncovering who knew what, when. As soon as one constructed a timeline, it was evident that the EU guidelines had not been followed, even as those involved claimed to be guided entirely by these guidelines,” said Mr Bergin. “That was probably the most interesting and rewarding because the rules were designed to protect people.”
As the reports show, includiing those from Reuters, Arcelik was informed by the London Fire Brigade some of its Beko fridges could pose a fire risk years before it informed its customers. When the company did take action, it decided to send out letters and did not follow EU suggestions to use the media to alert consumers to possible dangers.
The press had not investigated whether Arcelik’s behavior constituted a breach of EU or UK regulations and Bergin believes Arcelik’s effective stonewalling, and media’s disinterest in small stories like domestic fires, stopped the national press from digging deeper into the faulty fridges.
“It takes a great deal of time…Stonewalling often can be very effective, unfortunately, and we live in a country where the libel laws are so restrictive that even suggesting a company has behaved inappropriately poses big risks for news organisations,” he said.
Mr Bergin was the invited to Arcelik’s British headquarters after the company realised Reuters was investigating the story.
“A few weeks into it, it was quite clear to them that we were putting the time and effort into the story that meant we would quite likely come up with a compelling account of what happened and that we understood the rules, that we were making investigations in many different sources…Simply stonewalling wasn’t an option in the face of our persistence.”
More can be found in previous articles on this story here and here.
