W. R. Grace and Company
WR Grace and Company is the name of a U.S. global chemical company headquartered in Maryland, United States. The company was founded in 1854 by William Russell Grace ( 1832-1904 ), who was for a time mayor of New York.
The company has subsidiaries in nearly forty countries and employs approximately 6,400 employees. The annual turnover of two billion dollars. In Germany, WR Grace, among other subsidiaries in Worms ( Grace GmbH & Co KG), Düren ( Grace silica GmbH) and food ( Grace Construction Products GmbH).
WR Grace promoted vermiculite, a mica schist that rises when heated in volume and is in the form of granules to refractory feather-light insulation. 80 percent of Vermiculitförderung all over the world came from WR Grace Libby from the U.S. state of Montana. However, together with the seemingly harmless vermiculite tremolite, sponsored a special form of asbestos from the mountain. In the result, there were about 250,000 ads against WR Grace and Company; primarily by customers who processed or used the insulation material. 187 of ads came from mine workers and their families in Libby.
On September 11, 2006 should begin the process against leading members of the Grace Group in federal court in Missoula. They were accused, the competent authorities are not informed of the asbestos hazard and to have hindered the subsequent investigation. The judge Donald Molloy did not let the charge of knowingly endangering people in the valley; he relied attention to the limitation period of five years. The number of such claims for damages against WR Grace increased year by year continuously and moved WR Grace in 2001, eventually to apply for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11
In Woburn, Massachusetts, poisoned Grace and Beatrice Foods in 1979 the groundwater and Grace paid 8 million dollars through an out of court settlement with the families of seven children of Woburn, who got leukemia, because they had been drinking poisoned water (based on the film of Civil Procedure ). Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA took over one of its subsidiaries.