Brussels, 18/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - Civil and criminal proceedings are being looked into in the Rhodia case in France, and French IND-DEM MEP Patrick Louis has sent a letter to colleagues at the European Parliament expressing his 'deep misgivings about the correctness of the information published by the Commission, the legality of the decisions it has taken on this matter since 1999, and the heavy responsibilities which are clearly being evaded in this affair which is nothing less than a disaster in environmental, industrial, financial and human terms' and 'concerns related to the suspect role played by the European Commission in the "Rhodiagate" since 1999'. Since 2004, the French justice system has been investigating the 2000 and 2001 accounts of Rhodia. In 1999, the French concern of Rhône-Poulenc was preparing to acquire the German firm of Hoechst and merge with it to form “Aventis”, which would focus on pharmaceuticals rather than on the chemical industry. Rhône-Poulenc was thus intending to gradually dispose of its chemicals subsidiary Rhodia, the chemical industry subsidiary of Rhone-Poulenc, which had partially sold off Rhodia to prepare to buy German company Hoechst. The financial transactions being investigated (“presenting incorrect accounts, disseminating false and mendacious stock exchange information, insider dealing and concealment of insider dealing").
On 13 July 1999, the Santer Commission authorised Rhodia's acquisition of Albright & Wilson, before it requested Rhone-Poulenc, in its 9 August 1999 decision authorising the creation of Aventis, to sell Rhodia by April 2004. In time, Louis claims the two decisions allowed Rhone-Poulenc to dispose of its polluting and costly chemical business (in terms of ecological and health compensation to be paid by Rhodia) at lower cost at the same time as the company was negotiating with the Commission about selling Rhodia as part of the Hoechst deal. Another area of concern to the MEP: 'Almost five years later, on 30 January 2004, a few days after Rhodia had been forced to plead guilty to a US Federal Court for another serious environmental offence (incurring a fine of USD 19 million), Aventis now persuaded the Commission to amend the terms of its decision of 9 August 1999 (suggesting Aventis sold its shared in Waker Chemie rather than the 10% stake it still holds in Rhodia, Ed.)… This hasty change - requested on 29 January and adopted the following day - removed any doubt about the illegality of the original decision, while at the same time concealing the whole series of offences and manipulations which are now the subject of several sets of court proceedings. Clearly, the close shared interests between the former heads of Rhône-Poulenc on the one hand and one or more Commissioners - in both the 1999 and 2004 Commissions - on the other, made it possible to organise, and now to cover up, these offences.'