Thermomix in Australia was Wednesday ordered to pay a fine of 4.6 million dollars (3.5 million US dollars) for knowingly selling kitchen appliances that could potentially injure users, misleading the public about the products' safety, and refusing refunds.
Australia's consumer watchdog began legal proceedings last year over a safety issue affecting Thermomix's TM31 appliance, which injured at least 14 users who were burned by hot liquids due to a faulty seal.
Thermomix has admitted four contraventions of consumer laws.
The contraventions were serious and exposed a large number of consumers to the risk, Australian federal court justice Bernard Murphy said during the penalty hearing.
Despite knowing the potential risk of injury, the company continued to sell and promote the product from 7 July 2014 to 6 September 2014 and did not notify consumers about the safety issue until two weeks later.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said Thermomix in Australia, a local distributor, sent an email to Vorwerk, the German manufacturers, on July 7, 2014, with videos of issues with the TM31.
‘In my view, it knew, or should have known, earlier than that,’ Murphy told the court.
In the three months between Thermomix's email to German manufacturers Vorwerk and its voluntary product recall, the company sold 9,443 of its TM31 appliances.
Murphy said the company's ‘deliberate’ contravening conduct allowed them to generate sales, according to Australia Associated Press.
The Australian supplier also admitted making false and misleading statements in 2016 about the safety of the product and its recall, as well as breaching consumer laws by refusing to refund some of the customers.
The company has agreed to pay 230,000 dollars in legal costs incurred by the consumer watchdog.