Syngenta faces more suits over GMO corn junked by China

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Publish time: 21st October, 2014      Source: www.cnchemicals.com
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October 21, 2014

   

   

Syngenta faces more suits over GMO corn junked by China

   

   

   

The Swiss seed and chemical company Syngenta has been sued by US farmers in 11 states over alleged losses they had incurred from growing genetically engineered corns and rejected by China as imports.

   

   

The farmers, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, are seeking class-action status for the lawsuits filed in different US district courts. The farmers claimed they lost over US$1 billion.

   

   

Earlier grain exporters Cargill and Trans Coastal Supply sued Syngenta also for what they said were tens of millions of dollars in losses after China''s rejection of the GMOcorn, called Viptera. Syngenta said Viptera has tougher defenses against pests such as black cutworms and corn earworms.

   

   

The farmers alleged that the company sold them the biotech seeds before the Chinese authorities had approved the corn as importable product.

   

   

The farmers had been misled, according to James Pizzirusso, of Hausfeld LLP, a Washington-based law firm coordinating some of the farmers'' suits against Syngenta.

   

   

"Syngentashould not have marketed and aggressively promoted Viptera while misrepresenting that Chinese approval was imminent and also downplaying the importance of the Chinese export market", Pizzirusso was quoted in the report.

   

   

John Ramsay, Syngenta''s chief financial officer, however, said as quoted in the report: "We continue to believe that [we have] complied with all the laws, rules and regulations of the countries in which we''re selling the product".

   

   

Since 2011 Syngenta has sold Viptera to farmers in the US, Argentina and Brazil, with those governments'' approval.