Tire burst: Goodyear announces indictment

A subsidiary of tire giant Goodyear, suspected of concealing defects in some of its tires that caused fatal truck accidents in France, announced on Tuesday, May 13, that it had been indicted by the French courts.

"Goodyear Operations confirms that it has been informed of an ongoing investigation into certain heavy goods vehicle traffic accidents in 2014 and 2016," a spokesperson for the multinational announced. "Goodyear Operations will provide its full cooperation in this investigation," she added.

SAS Goodyear Operations, which produced the incriminated tires and is headquartered in Luxembourg, was summoned Tuesday by an investigating judge in Besançon, in eastern France, as part of an investigation into "involuntary manslaughter," "deception regarding the substantial qualities of goods" and "deceptive commercial practices." The Besançon prosecutor's office, when contacted, declined to comment at this stage of the proceedings.

The representative of a second Goodyear entity, SAS Goodyear France, the tire distributor in the country, was summoned on Wednesday.

"Goodyear must answer the investigating judge a simple question: did he know? And if he knew, why was nothing done to withdraw their tires from the market and thus avoid these tragedies?" asked Philippe Courtois, the lawyer of Sophie Rollet, widow of a truck driver who died in an accident in 2014 and who filed a complaint in 2016, triggering this case, in a press release on Tuesday.

The judge must decide, for each of these legal entities, whether or not to indict them for "involuntary manslaughter" , "deception on the substantial qualities of goods" and "deceptive commercial practices" . These last two counts would incur the world's third largest tire manufacturer "a maximum fine which could amount to 10% of its turnover" , the Besançon prosecutor, Étienne Manteaux, had stressed in April.

The investigation focuses on three fatal collisions involving heavy goods vehicles equipped with Goodyear tires in France in 2014 and 2016, which resulted in four deaths. It led to searches in May 2024 at Goodyear's locations in France, Luxembourg, and at the company's European headquarters in Brussels.

According to the investigation, the accidents were caused by the explosion of the trucks' left front tire, causing the drivers to lose control of the vehicle. In each of these cases, different experts concluded that the explosion of these Goodyear Marathon LHS II or Marathon LHS II+ tires was not due to an external cause but to a manufacturing defect.

The American giant is accused of having been aware of this defect on these two models, but of not having warned its customers. Starting in 2013, Goodyear set up "voluntary exchange programs" , which allowed it to recover approximately 50% of the incriminated equipment. But the group did not carry out a "compulsory" recall campaign of the affected tires, some of which are still available on used sales sites in Eastern Europe, according to the prosecutor.

The files of four other similar collisions that occurred between 2011 and 2014, in which three people died, were also submitted to the investigation for information purposes, as the facts were time-barred.