Back in the fall of 2008, Nordica USA, a major brand ski and boot manufacturer were served with about 200 warranty claims related to a pair of their skis. Apparently, the XBi ALU Skis’ binding plates were cracking and breaking easily. Ski retailers across the country sold the XBi ALU Skis for almost 2 and ½ years. They retailed for between $800 and $1,000 a pair. Nordica and The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a recall of somewhere in the vicinity of 4,500 pairs of skis in February of 2009 based on these claims.
How Nordica got into trouble is the CPSC argues that Nordica knew these binding plates were defective, and that they could cause potential harm to the public. Not only that, but Nordica failed to report this information to the CPSC, even though a failing binding plate could not only cause a skier to take a fall, but they could be seriously injured, or die as a result.
There’s a federal law on the books that requires companies like Nordica to report instances like this to the CPSC within 24 hours of obtaining such information. If a product contains some sort of defect that could cause an accident, injury, or fatality it means consumer product safety rules enforced by the CPSC, which are meant to safeguard the public, have been compromised and must be reported. Nordica did not do this although they deny that they knowingly violated any law, and refute claims made by the CPSC. No injuries resulting from the defective product are known to have occurred, but Nordica has agreed to pay a fine of $214,000 to deal with the CPSC allegations.