May 22, 2019

Andrew Campbell 

Bayer hired the international law firm Sidley Austin to investigate the scheme run by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018 with $63 billion. 

It was reported by French News Paper Le Monde that Monsanto collected a list of politicians, journalists and other stakeholders who expressed the opinion to influence the public discussion on pesticides and genetically modified products.

Currently, Bayer faces around 13,400 lawsuits in the United States from plaintiff declaring that its Roundup weed killer containing glyphosate causes cancers. However, Bayer argues about it. 

Bayer posted a Q&A document on the French website, saying that FleishmanHillard, on behalf of Monsanto, collected information about stakeholders in France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdoms and also those related to EU institution. The company stated that Sidley Austin will start to explore how many stakeholders were in the list. The law firm prepared to contact these stakeholders by the end of this week. 

Currently, Bayer has announced that they terminated the cooperation with FleishmanHillard in public relation department but they still continue to work with the marketing department. 

According to the email of Bayer U.S. SVP of corporate affairs Ray Kerins, the stance of Bayer is looking forward to an open and fair method to deal with all the people and dedicated to providing a positive communication with all stakeholders in a professional way. 

Photo:Webshot.