Shaking Power Plate on the rack

Pointed accusations about the company's ethics have followed the exposure of fake medical certificates on its website. They remain, however, in Power Plate's global marketing strategy. One of the world's leading researchers into vibration technology, Dr. Marco Cardinale, demanded that his name be removed after he discovered that it was being used to endorse the company's products. And now there is new evidence of customers being told that Power Plate's Chinese-made equipment is built in Europe.

Frans Giezen, one half of the Dutch couple who built Power Plate into one of the international fitness and wellbeing company's most successful subsidiaries, said Tuesday that he had visited the Wellness & Beauty Middle East trade show, where one of the company's sales staff, Ms Fleur, was insisting the equipment was manufactured in the Netherlands.

"This is fraud," said Frans Giezen, adding "where is it manufactured? Netherlands, China or Switzerland? They have even now done a deal with Hero Motors to build the equipment in India. Imagine - healthcare equipment being built by a car maker - it is ridiculous. Everyone knows that manufacturing in India is even cheaper than in China."

Of the legal actions against PPI, Giezen, said, "By announcing this re-launch, they are stealing the benefits of two years of our hard work and they will be made to pay for it."

Giezen and van Aspert, founded and built up PPME, only to have it illegally snatched away from them when they objected to a new distributor contract that was drawn up after the US investment house, J.H. Whitney & Co, took over the company last year. So far they have been backed by four summary judgments in Dutch courts, while PPI has paid not one cent of the 900,000 Euros awarded to the couple as an interim payment against their total claim of Euro27-million.

As he watched plans being laid for Wednesday's event to re-launch Power Plate, Giezen told us, "I saw the announcement on the AME Info website. The fact that they are calling this event a 're-launch' will only make our case stronger because they actually state that the Middle East offers a 'huge market potential'. This is the opposite of what they are telling courts in The Netherlands, where they claim that our assessment of the market is exaggerated."

Courts in The Netherlands have already frozen PPI's assets and those of its Dutch founder, Guus van der Meer. Now the main proceedings, that could confirm already substantial awards, have been started.

Whatever happens in the Middle East, PPI is in deep trouble around the world. The four Netherlands judgments in favour of Giezen and van Aspert are not the only problems the directors would rather the world did not hear about.

They have also been forced in recent weeks to remove the name of one of the world's foremost researchers into vibration technology, Dr Marco Cardinale, from the list of names on its Scientific Education Advisory Board. The public was being duped by the company's website into believing that Dr Cardinale along with other clinicians and scientists named were endorsing the company and its equipment.

On its website, PPI states, "The Power Plate group of companies is supported by a distinguished Scientific Medical Advisory Board, made up of 10 MDs, PhDs and industry
experts from around the world..." It went on to name Dr Cardinale at the top of the list of names.

Earlier this month, on May 3, Dr Cardinale issued a public statement denying that he had any involvement with PPI and stating that he had never issued any endorsement of its products. He says that the company 'is being dealt with at the appropriate level'.

Elsewhere in Europe, which is the undoubted power base of Power Plate, it is rumoured that health authorities in Greece are preparing to block the import of its equipment on the grounds that it causes problems to women's ovaries. As women are one of the major target groups because of the beneficial effect on osteoporosis, the global consequences could be catastrophic if it were proved that there were ovarian concerns.

Further afield, in New Zealand, the PPI subsidiary has been successfully taken to court over claims that they systematically misrepresented their vibration exercise equipment as being European-made, when most of the components came from China.