NANTERRE (France) • A French court has ordered the German safety certifier that approved defective breast implants for use to compensate around 400 Swedish women who received the devices behind a global health scare.

The court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Thursday ordered TUV to pay €4,600 (S$7,200) to each of the Swedish plaintiffs for the harm caused by approving implants made by French firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP).

It also ordered the company to reimburse the cost of having the implants - which were filled with a cheap industrial-grade silicone gel used in electronic equipment - removed.

The decision comes a month after France's highest appeals court ordered that TUV be retried for negligence over its role in the affair, after being initially cleared of liability by a lower court. After a separate trial, the company had been ordered to pay €60 million as a deposit for potential compensation for 20,000 women who received the defective implants.

The PIP implant scandal made global headlines in 2011, after doctors noticed abnormally high rupture rates in the implants. Some 400,000 people worldwide are believed to have received the enhancements. Thousands had them removed, despite the health authorities in several countries declaring them not to be toxic.

PIP founder Jean-Claude Mas was convicted of fraud and given four years in jail.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE