Aventis Takes Legal Action Vs UK Govt Over Pesticide

Dow Jones Newswires 7sep01

LONDON -- Biotech company Aventis CropScience (AVE) will take legal action against the U.K. government over plans to publicize details about one of its products, a company spokesman said Friday.

The company intends to stop the government's Pesticides Safety Directorate from giving out information regarding a product known as glufosinate ammonium, a pesticide being used in the U.K.'s farm scale trials of genetically-modified crops.

"I can confirm that we lodged a claim today with the high court for judicial review," Aventis' spokesman Clive Rainbird told Dow Jones Newswires.

The request for making details about the pesticide known to the public was submitted to the U.K. government by U.K. environmental group Friends of the Earth.

"Aventis are one the claimants for this, but the other claimant is our industry association, referred to as the Crop Protection Association," Rainbird said. "Our concern, and I'm speaking now as industry, is that the proposal to give third parties access to this data is to give away commercially sensitive information." Rainbird said.