Bayer CropScience has suffered a setback in its legal battles with disgruntled American rice farmers.
On April 15, a jury ordered Bayer to pay $48 million US in compensatory and punitive damages to 14 Arkansas rice farmers.
The company plans to contest the ruling, saying it met its legal requirements regarding low-level GM presence.
The farmers filed the lawsuit after an unregistered genetically modified rice variety that Bayer developed was discovered in U.S. rice supplies in 2006.
The farmers said the discovery of Bayer’s experimental Liberty Link rice line damaged international markets for American grown rice.
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Farmers in several U.S. states have launched cases against Bayer as a result. Four suits have made their way through U.S. courts.
In the Arkansas case, farmers claimed that the discovery of the unregistered GM rice variety in American rice stocks caused rice prices to fall and disrupted U.S. rice exports to Europe and Asia.
The farmers claimed Bayer was negligent in its handling of the herbicide tolerant variety.
They also contended that the company failed to notify authorities when it learned that traces of the variety had been discovered in commercial rice stocks.
The suit claims Bayer knew of the contamination as early as January 2006. Lawyers for the company say the leak was reported to government authorities immediately.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not announce the contamination publicly until August 2006.
Shortly after the April 15 ruling, Bayer issued a new release calling it incomprehensible. It also said the company would use all legal means at its disposal to reverse the ruling.
“The decision is especially incomprehensible to us because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has completed a thorough and diligent investigation without concluding that Bayer CropScience violated any legal requirement with respect to low level presence of genetically modified rice in commercial rice,” said Bayer general counsel Bruce Mackintosh.
The case could have far-reaching implications for public breeding institutions and private sector bioscience companies that are developing genetically modified crops.
Several companies have conducted field trials on unregistered GM wheat varieties in Canada and the United States.
Last year, discovery of an unregistered GM flax variety disrupted Canadian flax exports to Europe.
The offending variety, CDC Triffid, was registered in Canada and later deregistered when flax industry officials concluded it had the potential to disrupt Canadian flax exports.
