Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who wrote the 1,700 page report, found that Kingspan and two other firms engaged in a deliberate strategy to mislead the market about their products.
The Cavan-headquartered company, which reported revenues of around €2bn for the first three months of this year, produced only 5pc of the combustible foam insulation used on the tower. But it has been accused of “knowingly” misleading authorities about the results of tests done on its K15 product.
“One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market,” the report says.
“From 2005 until after this inquiry had begun, Kingspan knowingly created a false market in insulation for use on buildings over 18 metres in height by claiming that K15 had been part of a system successfully tested under BS 8414 and could therefore be used in the external wall of any building over 18 metres in height regardless of its design or other components.
“That was a false claim, as it well knew, because BS 8414 is a method for testing complete wall systems and its results apply only to the particular system tested. As Kingspan knew, K15 could not honestly be sold as suitable for use in the external walls of buildings over 18 metres in height generally, but that is what it had succeeded in doing for many years.”
In a statement this morning Kingspan “welcomed” publication of the report which it said explains clearly that the type of insulation involved was immaterial in the disaster, “and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan”.
The company said it had long acknowledged the “wholly unacceptable historical failings that occurred in part of our UK insulation business. These were in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a group, then or now. While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy”.
Kingspan says it has already emphatically addressed the issues, including the implementation of extensive and externally-verified measures to ensure high conduct and compliance standards.
It said its “wholly unacceptable historical failings” were regrettable but did not cause the tragedy.
The report into the disaster, in which 72 people died, also criticises the British Board of Agrément (BBA), a commercial organisation that certifies the compliance of products with the requirements of legislation.
It issued certificates of compliance in respect of one of the insulation products used on Grenfell Tower, Kingspan’s K15, and the Reynobond 55 PE panels used as the rainscreen. These certificates were accepted in the industry largely without question, the report says, “but its procedures were neither wholly independent nor rigorous and were not always rigorously applied”.
“The dishonest strategies of Arconic and Kingspan succeeded in a large measure due to the incompetence of the BBA, its failure to adhere robustly to the system of checks it had put in place, and an ingrained willingness to accommodate customers instead of insisting on high standards and adherence to a contract that was intended to maintain them,” the report adds.
“As a result of systemic shortcomings and inadequate levels of competence and technical expertise among its staff, its scrutiny of the fire performance of K15 and Reynobond 55 PE was seriously deficient and the certificates it produced for those products were misleading.”