COLMAR (France) - A FRENCH court of appeal on Thursday confirmed a 200,000-euro (S$429,404) fine against Swedish carmaker Volvo, found guilty of manslaughter over a fatal car crash in eastern France in 1999.

It upheld a previous ruling that found that faulty brakes on the Volvo 850 TDI vehicle indirectly caused the accident, in which a French schoolteacher ran over and killed two young children on their way to school.

The court also confirmed the sentence handed to the driver, Catherine Kohtz, 57, who received a six-month suspended prison sentence and a 300-euro fine, and had her licence temporarily revoked for failure to control her vehicle.

'The most important thing for my client is that Volvo's guilt has been recognised, after years of legal procedures,' said Kohtz's lawyer Thierry Cahn.

'The accident stemmed from a failure in the braking system, as she insisted from the beginning.' The appeal court ordered the ruling to be published in two French national newspapers. -- AFP