LIHUE — The Honolulu firm of McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP has been selected to represent the County of Kauai in a lawsuit filed by four biotech seed companies relating to Ordinance 960. “We have every confidence that this firm
LIHUE — The Honolulu firm of McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP has been selected to represent the County of Kauai in a lawsuit filed by four biotech seed companies relating to Ordinance 960.
“We have every confidence that this firm will appropriately represent the county’s interests in this matter,” Kauai Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. said in a statement Thursday.
County Councilman Gary Hooser, who co-introduced the bill in June, said he was pleased the county settled on such a “high-powered, first-class” law firm — one he added has represented the county well in the past.
“The depth, strength and experience of the McCorriston bench combined with the subject matter, expertise and the experience of Earthjustice (and) the Center for Food Safety translates to Kauai having two top notch legal teams working on the community’s behalf,” he said.
On Monday, a coalition of Kauai residents and public interest groups, represented by the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, filed papers in federal district court to intervene as defendants in the legal challenge.
While pleased with the selected law firm, Hooser has not been shy about his feelings in regard to the filed lawsuit.
“I still find it despicable that the world’s largest chemical companies have chosen to sue our county rather than simply comply with the law,” he said. “I mean it when I say despicable.”
Councilman Tim Bynum, also a co-introducer of the controversial legislation, expressed similar sentiments as Hooser about the McCorriston firm.
“It’s a good firm. They’re very robust. They have the tools,” he said. “I assume they will work collaborative with the administration, the council and interveners.”
Phone calls Thursday to the office of McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP were not returned by press time.
Ordinance 960 (formerly Bill 2491), which passed in November via a veto override, seeks to regulate pesticide use and the growing of genetically modified crops on the island.
In January, Syngenta, DuPont Pioneer and Agrigenetics Inc., a company affiliated with Dow AgroSciences, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Honolulu aimed at blocking implementation of the new law, slated to take affect in August. BASF joined the suit earlier this month.
