A jury returned a verdict in favor of Boltex and Weldbend on all counts in a lawsuit by the American carbon steel flange manufacturers, against Spanish company, Ulma Forja — part of the Mondragon Corp. — and its U.S. subsidiary, Ulma Piping. The trial, which began on Sept. 16, was presided over by Judge Andrew S. Hanen in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.
Boltex, based in Houston, and Weldbend, headquartered outside Chicago, became suspicious several years ago when Ulma began offering supposedly heat-treated (“normalized”) flanges to U.S. customers at undercutting prices. The plaintiffs sued Ulma in 2017, after metallurgical testing suggested that Ulma’s flanges had not been normalized and were not in conformance with industry standards as claimed by Ulma’s advertising.