In the Mediator case, the Servier laboratories were found guilty on March 29 of "aggravated deception" and "unintentional homicides and injuries", but acquitted of the offenses of improperly obtaining marketing authorization and of 'fraud.

The Paris prosecutor's office announced Tuesday to appeal this partial release. 

The Paris prosecutor's office announced on Tuesday that it had appealed against the partial release of Servier laboratories in the Mediator case, a drug held responsible for hundreds of deaths and one of the worst French health scandals.

Servier laboratories were found guilty on March 29 of "aggravated deception" and "unintentional homicides and injuries", but acquitted of the offenses of improperly obtaining marketing authorization and fraud.

They were sentenced by the Paris Criminal Court to a fine of 2.718 million euros.

The prosecution, which in June 2020 requested a total of 10.228 million euros in fines against the parent company and five companies of the pharmaceutical group, has therefore decided to appeal this partial release.

This call "concerns the former operational director and certain companies of the Servier group," said the public prosecutor in a press release.

A call "wanted" by the victims

"I take note of this decision", reacted to AFP Me François de Castro, lawyer of the Servier laboratories.

"We will also appeal," he said.

For Charles Joseph-Oudin, counsel to several hundred direct victims, "this call was a decision wanted by my clients and we salute it".

"In the court's decision, there was a very disturbing element: the fact that social security and mutual societies are not reimbursed for very large sums", continues the lawyer.

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The firm and its former number two, Jean-Philippe Seta, sentenced him to four years of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 90,600 euros for "aggravated deception" and "involuntary homicides and injuries", but released from fraud, will be therefore retried.

The court considered that the companies of the group and Jean-Philippe Seta are "the authors of a fraud of a considerable and unprecedented scale, of which thousands of patients were victims", whereas they "had, from 1995, enough elements to become aware of the mortal risks which they made run "to the consumers of the Mediator.

ANSM will not appeal

Sentenced to a fine of 303,000 euros for having delayed in suspending the marketing of the Mediator despite its toxicity, the National Drug Safety Agency (ANSM, ex-Afssaps) had indicated that it would not appeal.

More than 6,500 people became civil parties during this criminal trial, mainly for "deception".

Around 180 million euros in damages have been awarded to the victims in compensation for the damages suffered, according to preliminary estimates.

The investigation for "manslaughter and unintentional injury" is still ongoing and should give rise to a second trial.