(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG said outside investigators found nothing illegal in a Monsanto project that tracked journalists, politicians and others in Europe before the companies combined last year.
Law firm Sidley Austin LLP concluded a review -- ordered up by Bayer -- of Monsanto's past lobbying and public-affairs efforts that included public-relations company FleishmanHillard. The probe came after French news reports in May that the U.S. company had kept secret scores on more than 200 people in a bid to suppress criticism and lobby for approval of Monsanto products like Roundup weedkiller.
Bayer hired outside lawyers to review the situation -- which also had caused a Paris prosecutor to get involved -- because the German company said it didn't want access to the information that Monsanto compiled. Sidley Austin was asked to figure out whether information was collected in an inappropriate or illegal manner.
“There is no question that the stakeholder lists created were detailed, methodical, and designed to strongly advocate Monsanto's positions to stakeholders and to the public,” the report concluded, according to a Bayer statement. Even so, “we did not find evidence to support the French media's allegations regarding the illegality of the stakeholder lists.”
Uproar over the tracking project has been one of many headaches Bayer inherited from Monsanto, which it bought in June 2018 for about $63 billion. Since the deal closed, Bayer has lost three U.S. trials over claims -- denied by the German company -- that Roundup causes cancer. Its shares are down about 30% since the acquisition was completed.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Loh in Munich at tloh16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Marthe Fourcade
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