"company's chapter"

Chapter?

But my point is, what is lying? If a kettle is designed to last 10 years, it's reasonable to expect that 100% won't last that long, so what percentage should we reasonably allow to break in that time, 10%? 20%? 50%?. If the manufacturer was found to be lying, do I with my still working kettle get compensated?

And your answer raises other concerns, who is this consumer advocacy group that's going to lead this? Is it reasonable to assume some proportion of people are going to direct their complaints there? This to me doesn't seem like an easy thing to police at all.

the company is dissolved, when it lies. bad for shareholder value, and a very good incentive to be honest, but this doesn't seem to fit too well into todays corporate scheme.

If there's reasonable doubt (ie a large number of complaints about the kettle failing), the manufacturer has to provide sales statistics and test results and will be judged accordingly. As for the consumer advocacy groups: it's pretty standard in Europe to have these (and they are the only ones to initiate something like class-action). As for the metrics: everything is measured, I'm sure, we can come up with a sensible metric?!