THE firm which made cladding used on Grenfell Tower did not tell certifiers about a product’s “disastrous” failed fire test despite being legally required to do so, the inquiry into the fire heard yesterday.

The president of the French arm of Arconic, Claude Schmidt, agreed that the omission of the test amounted to a “misleading half-truth.”

In 2004 the firm’s Reynobond PE cassette product — the cladding used on the west London tower block which was destroyed by fire in June 2017, killing 72 people — failed a fire safety test which had to be stopped after 850 seconds. 

Another version of the Reynobond PE product, which burned much slower and released around seven times less heat, passed the test with a B grading.

But both versions were sold under the same fire safety certificate issued by the British Board of Agreement in 2008 because Arconic had not shared data from the failed test.

Mr Schmidt admitted that the firm had “probably” been legally obliged to share the data with certifiers, but denied that the firm deliberately concealed the failed test.