$217.7 Million Verdict for 7,000-Plus Corn Farmers After Syngenta Sold GMO Corn Before China Approval

In 2011, Syngenta began selling Agrisure Viptera corn seed in the United States. The seed contained the MIR162 trait, a genetic modification designed to control certain insects. Syngenta later introduced a second variety, Agrisure Duracade, with a similar profile. Neither trait had received import approval from China, one of the largest buyers of American corn.

In late 2013, Chinese port inspectors began detecting MIR162 in incoming U.S. corn shipments and turned them away. The rejections were not limited to farmers who had planted Viptera. Because U.S. grain moves through shared elevators, trucks, and rail cars, the MIR162 trait commingled through the supply chain and surfaced in corn grown from conventional seed as well. China's ban effectively shut American corn out of that market for more than a year. Cash corn prices fell roughly 20 percent from the period before the ban.

Plaintiffs filed suits across the country. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized them before Judge John W. Lungstrum in the District of Kansas. The court certified eight state classes. The Kansas class, covering more than 7,000 corn producers, went to trial first, with the proceeding beginning on June 5, 2017.

Scott A. Powell of Hare Wynn Newell and Newton was one of four attorneys appointed co-lead class counsel by the court, alongside Patrick Stueve of Stueve Siegel Hanson, William Chaney of Gray Reed and McGraw, and Don Downing of Gray Ritter and Graham. At trial, the plaintiff team argued that Syngenta rushed MIR162 corn to market to compete with Monsanto and placed its own commercial interests ahead of the farmers who depended on export access. Powell told the court that Syngenta gave no consideration to what would happen to growers if China's doors closed.

After 18 days of trial and roughly half a day of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict on June 23, 2017. It found Syngenta negligent and awarded $217.7 million in compensatory damages to the Kansas class. The jury declined to add punitive damages. The verdict was the first and only one reached in the broader MDL before the parties negotiated a nationwide resolution.

In early 2018, Syngenta agreed to a $1.51 billion class action settlement covering corn growers, crop-share landlords, grain handlers, and ethanol producers across the United States, a figure that at the time was described as the largest agricultural class action settlement in U.S. history. Judge Lungstrum granted final approval on December 7, 2018. The Kansas trial verdict was effectively subsumed into that broader recovery.

China approved the Viptera and Duracade traits in December 2014, ending the import blockade, but the economic losses had already accumulated across multiple marketing years before that approval arrived.