Animal feed companies have brought a High Court challenge to new regulations requiring them to state the percentages of the ingredients on their products.
The six companies say they have no objection to listing the ingredients, and are already doing so, but they do object to being required to list the exact percentages by weight of same.
In effect, this involves having to publicly list trade secrets in circumstances where there is no public health or safety interest in doing so, they claim.
The regulations were brought in to give effect to provisions of a European Council Directive - Directive 2002/2/EC - on the circulation of compounding foodstuffs. The High Court heard challenges to similar implementing measures have been brought in some other EU states.
Mr Justice Murphy gave leave yesterday to Mr Denis McDonald SC, for the companies, to challenge the 2003 regulations in judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Agriculture and Food and the State.
The regulations were due to come into effect yesterday, but the companies are to seek an order restraining their implementation pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.
The companies are Irish Sugar Limited, trading as Greenvale Animal Feeds, Athy Road, Carlow; William Connolly and Sons Limited, trading as Connolly's Redmills, Goresbridge, Co Kilkenny; Robert Smyth and Sons (Strabane and Donegal) Limited, trading as Smyth's Daleside Feeds, Ballindrait, Lifford, Co Donegal; Arrabawn Co-op Society Limited, trading as Dan O'Connor Feeds, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; Neil Stewart trading as Joseph Stewart, Corn Mills, Boyle, Co Roscommon; and A.W. Ennis (Dublin) Limited, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.
In applying for leave, Mr McDonald said his clients are engaged in making compound feedstuffs for animals. To have to list the percentages of the ingredients on those feedstuffs would effectively mean their giving their formulas away, and would give competitors an unfair advantage. Disclosure of the percentages would do his clients enormous damage and give competitors access to trade secrets.
The percentages listing requirement was introduced in the wake of the BSE crisis and after dioxins were found in the animal food chain in Belgium, counsel said. it was also illogical given that companies making foods for human consumption were not required to disclose the percentage of ingredients.
However, from a public health and safety perspective, there was no logic in such a requirement. What mattered was the ingredients involved and the source of those and his clients were listing those ingredients.
