In the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced that Mega Brands America Inc. has agreed to pay a $1.1 million civil penalty. The penalty, which the Commission has provisionally accepted, settles allegations that Mega Brands and Rose Art (the company’s former name) failed, as required under federal law, to provide the government with timely information about dangers to children with Magnetix magnetic building sets, .

Rose Art had filed an “initial report” in December of 2005, stating that a 22-month-old child from Washington state had died, due to ingesting multiple magnets that fell out of pieces from a Magnetix set. The report contained no other product or incident information and Rose Art attributed the magnets falling out to unusually abusive play by the toddler’s older siblings.

Rose Art submitted a “Full Report” on February 1, 2006, which also lacked incident and product information. Rose Art stated that it did not retain any complaint or incident records. Then on March 31, 2006, Rose Art voluntarily recalled nearly 4 million Magnetix sets for users under the age of 6.

After discovering documents which led CPSC staff to believe Rose Art had compiled incident information, a subpoena was issued to the firm (which had been renamed Mega Brands America and was under new ownership and control) to obtain product and incident information. CPSC discovered that at the time when Rose Art filed its “initial report”, it had received over 1,100 consumer complaints that magnets had fallen out of plastic pieces from dozens of different Magnetix models. It also came to light that Rose Art had received at least one report of an injury due to magnet ingestion before the death of a small child in Washington state.

When Rose Art agreed to  recall Magnetix in March 2006, the firm had received more than 1,500 complaints of magnets falling out of plastic pieces in more than 65 different models of Magnetix. In April 2007, Mega Brands America expanded the recall of Magnetix sets for users of any age, after more than 25 children suffered intestinal injuries that required surgery to remove the magnets.

In settling this matter, Mega Brands America and its Canadian parent company, Mega Brands Inc., contend that firstly Mega Brands Inc. did not know of the Magnetix defect when it acquired Rose Art and secondly that Rose Art’s prior owners never advised Mega Brands Inc. of the problems of associated with Magnetix.

The CPSC have also stated that they strongly encourage consumers to check to see if they have any of the recalled building sets and return them to Mega Brands for a free replacement toy: “potentially millions of recalled units remain in homes today and accessible to young children.”

Mega Brands: Recall Information