Brimer v. PCE Industry, Inc., et al.

Citizen enforcer Russell Brimer and settling defendant PCE Industry, Inc. ("PCE") entered into an out-of-court agreement on May 21, 2007, which resolved Brimer's allegations that PCE sold motherboards with solder containing the heavy metal lead in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, PCE agreed not to sell any desktop products in California after May 28, 2007, unless the products have Proposition 65 warnings provided or contain no more than .1 percent of lead by weight in each material, unless that material is embedded in a manner that a consumer or worker would not ordinarily come into contact with the lead. By December 31, 2008, PCE agreed that all motherboards sold in California shall be reformulated. Additionally, in a good faith effort to warn the public about the risk of lead exposure, PCE agreed to post a Proposition 65 warning on its website for three years. Due to PCE's cooperation and commitment to reformulation, Brimer agreed to credit a portion of the civil fine. As incentive for reformulation, should PCE complete the voluntary penalty reductions outlined in the Settlement Agreement, Brimer agreed to waive an additional portion of the civil fine.

The Settlement Agreement requires settlement payments of $64,000, to be divided therein between civil penalties, 75% of which are paid to California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and compensation to whistleblower Brimer and his counsel for their successful enforcement of this matter in the public interest.