German agrichemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer has asked Sidley Austin to investigate possible data protection breaches by FleishmanHillard, a public relations and marketing company that was working on Bayer's public affairs.

Bayer has faced fierce public criticism in France and other EU countries after French media revealed that FleishmanHillard had drawn up a list of important stakeholders connected to the authorisation of glyphosate, a controversial pesticide. Glyphosate is owned by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2016.

In a statement, Bayer said that it has asked Sidley's Brussels office to investigate the names on the list and the information stored about them. Bayer said that Sidley would contact all the people on the list before the end of next week to inform them that their details had been collected by FleishmanHillard.