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Federal Judge: Multidistrict Litigation May Proceed Against Major GMO Seed Company
The prices for US corn have been hammered as countries ban importation of GMO corn. Taxpayer subsidies for GMO corn farmers and the vendors they buy from are expected to be $8 billion+ for 2014. A major lawsuit joined by ADM and Cargill contends that Syngenta, the european Monsanto, willfully and illegally contaminated US corn supplies with unapproved GMO varieties.
Syngenta moved to have the lawsuit(s) dismissed but a Federal Judge ruled last week that the case will go forward.
The co-lead plaintiff counsel ...allege, among other things, that Syngenta was negligent in the timing, scope and manner of commercializing Viptera and Duracade genetically modified corn in the United States knowing that China had not yet approved the corn. China was a major importer of U.S. corn and stopped accepting virtually all U.S. corn shipments. As a result, prices for U.S. corn were depressed, economically damaging U.S. corn growers and others in the industry, according to the plaintiffs.
Judge Lungstrum rejected Syngenta's argument that the company had no duty to protect the farmers, exporters and others in the industry who had brought suit. In his ruling, the judge said "the law reasonably imposes a duty on a manufacturer to exercise reasonable care not to commercialize and sell its product in a way that creates a risk of widespread harm resulting from the intended use of the product by all of its customers."
Based on the allegations in the complaint, the Court made two other key observations: (1) "[t]his case .... involves a risk of harm to other participants in an inter-connected market, participants whom Syngenta has appeared to embrace as stakeholders, and thus who are especially vulnerable to the wrongful acts alleged by plaintiffs"; and (2) Syngenta had actually represented that it would take steps to protect the industry from the very harm which had occurred.
"This is a big win for the American corn farmer," said Gray, Ritter & Graham's Downing. "We believe the court's ruling thoroughly addresses and rejects the primary legal defenses asserted by Syngenta, namely, that it had no duty to avoid conduct that it knew was likely to harm corn farmers and others and that the economic loss doctrine barred those claims."
Judge Lungstrum rejected Syngenta's argument that the company had no duty to protect the farmers, exporters and others in the industry who had brought suit. In his ruling, the judge said "the law reasonably imposes a duty on a manufacturer to exercise reasonable care not to commercialize and sell its product in a way that creates a risk of widespread harm resulting from the intended use of the product by all of its customers."
Based on the allegations in the complaint, the Court made two other key observations: (1) "[t]his case .... involves a risk of harm to other participants in an inter-connected market, participants whom Syngenta has appeared to embrace as stakeholders, and thus who are especially vulnerable to the wrongful acts alleged by plaintiffs"; and (2) Syngenta had actually represented that it would take steps to protect the industry from the very harm which had occurred.
"This is a big win for the American corn farmer," said Gray, Ritter & Graham's Downing. "We believe the court's ruling thoroughly addresses and rejects the primary legal defenses asserted by Syngenta, namely, that it had no duty to avoid conduct that it knew was likely to harm corn farmers and others and that the economic loss doctrine barred those claims."
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ruling-means-syngenta-corn-multidistrict-litigation-may-proceed-forward-towards-trial-300147081.html
Syngenta is the company that Monsanto has targeted for take-over since it is the world's leading producers of pesticides:
Syngenta is the main US supplier of the herbicide atrazine, which has come under heavy suspicion as an endocrine-disrupting chemical that messes with frogs' genitalia and seeps into people's drinking water. Syngenta is also one of two dominant purveyors of neonicotinoids—blockbuster insecticides (annual global sales: $2.6 billion) that have been substantially implicated in declining health of honeybees and other pollinators, birds, and water-borne animals. Both atrazine and neonics are currently banned in Europe, and widely, albeit controversially, used in the US.
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/05/monsanto-syngenta-merger-45-billion-pesticides
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