Umweltverbrechen multinationaler Konzerne - Greenpeace

Aventis SA (USA)
Company details Aventis SA 195
Company activity
(products, plants)
16 avenue de l’Europe
67300 Strasbourg
France
Tel +33 3 88 99 11 00
Fax +33 3 88 99 11 01
Aventis Crop Science sales in 2000: € 4,034 mio 196
Aventis was created in December 1999, through the merger of
Hoechst and Rhône-Poulenc. Only in April 2002 did the European
Commission approve Bayer's EUR 7.25 billion euro (USD 6.38
billion) purchase of Aventis CropScience (ACS), on the condition that
Bayer divest a number of businesses. 197
The core business of Aventis is the manufacturing and sale of
pharmaceutical products. Besides the corporate headquarters in
Strasbourg, France, other major sites are Bridgewater (New Jersey,
USA), Paris (France), Frankfurt (Germany) and Tokyo (Japan).
Aventis CropScience produces and markets herbicides, fungicides
and insecticides as well as genetically engineered (GE) crops.
No. 3 agrochemical company in 2000, No. 10 seed company in the
198 199
world
Type of incident Contamination of food chain with illegal GE maize.
Type of damage On 18 September, 2000, a coalition of environmental organisations
announced that they had found an unapproved GE maize variety in a
product sold in US supermarkets. The Kraft Foods Taco Bell brand
taco shells they had analysed tested positive for GE maize variety
‘StarLink‘ developed by Aventis CropScience.
This GE maize entered human food products in violation of its
registered use: in the US, StarLink has not been approved for human
consumption by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
195 Aventis Executive Committee :
Jürgen Dormann (Chairman of the Management Board), Jean-René Fourtou (Vice-Chairman of the Management Board),
Igor Landau (Member of the Management Board), Patrick Langlois (Chief Financial Officer), Richard J. Markham (CEO of
Aventis Pharma), Bertrand Meheut (Chairman and CEO of Aventis CropScience), René Penisson (Chief Human Resources
Officer)
Subsidiaries :
Aventis CropScience (crop protection and crop production, 76% owned by Aventis, 24% owned by Schering AG), Aventis
Pharma (prescription drugs), Aventis Pasteur (human vaccines), Aventis Behring (therapeutic proteins), Merial (animal
health, 50% owned by Aventis, 50% owned by Merck & Co), Aventis Animal Nutrition
Only in April 2002 the European Commission approved Bayer's 7.25 billion euro ($6.38 billion) purchase of Aventis
CropScience (ACS), on the condition that Bayer divests a number of businesses.
(http://www.press.bayer.com/news/news.nsf/id/F89ECA1217B6ADE5C1256B9E0039C310?Open&ccm=001001000&l=EN)
www.aventis.com
196 www.cropscience.aventis.com/about/facts.htm
197 http://www.press.bayer.com/news/news.nsf/id/F89ECA1217B6ADE5C1256B9E0039C310?Open&ccm=001001000&l=EN
198 ETC – Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (2001) Globalization, Inc. – Concentration in Corporate Power: The
unmentioned agenda. Communique, based on data provided by Allan Woodburn Associates cited in Agrow
199 ETC – Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (2001) Globalization, Inc. – Concentration in Corporate Power: The
unmentioned agenda. Communique, based on data provided by Allan Woodburn Associates cited in Agrow
95