The crisis-hit agribusiness titan Monsanto is facing a new wave of legal squabbling after US lawyers said that they have "explosive" documents about the company’s business in Europe, Euronews reported.
A new lawsuit is now being filed against Monsanto with a special committee of the European Parliament.
"What we have is the tip of the iceberg. And in fact we have documents now in our possession, hundreds of documents, that have not been declassified and some of those are explosive," said US lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"And many of them are pertinent to what Monsanto did here in Europe. And that's just the beginning," he added.
Belgium’s Green MEP Bart Staes said that the legal battle now ongoing in the United States was also one for democracy.
"They are fighting a fight for more democracy and for transparency and to get a better insight in how big corporation such as Monsanto act and try to manipulate the facts," he said.
In November 2018, the EU approved the use of glyphosate, a chemical used in Monsanto's Roundup product, for five years after a heated debate over whether it causes cancer.
The European Union may withdraw the license for this year’s Roundup production.
Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate is the most popular weed killer in the United States. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic.
READ MORE: Agent Orange, White Phosphorus… Roundup: Monsanto's Killer History in Full
The EPA labeled glyphosate a carcinogen in 1985, but reversed its position in 1991.
The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015. California has listed glyphosate in its registry of chemicals known to cause cancer.
