The current US suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages from Aventis for being a public nuisance, for negligence and for committing consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices. There have been rumblings for the past few weeks that a lawsuit, or many lawsuits, should be forthcoming in the StarLink fiasco. Last Friday, a suit was filed on behalf of growers who didn't plant StarLink corn on their farms. The Class seeks compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief under the common law. It's the farmers with non-StarLink corn grown near farms with the biotech crop that are suffering because of lost markets.
Japan is already excluding our corn, Korea wants to exclude our corn.
We still have the same supply of corn but with a lower demand. Osman points out that this suit is not about biotechnology. According to Osman, Aventis did not tell farmers about the 660-foot buffer zone, they did not get growers to sign an agreement for the technology, the company didn't have farmers segregate the grain and this has contaminated grain with StarLink content. Aventis' marketing and sale of StarLink with the knowledge that StarLink contained a known human allergen and that StarLink was likely to contaminate or cross-pollinate with corn destined for the food supply. Aventis' marketing and sale of StarLink with the knowledge that StarLink was likely to contaminate non-StarLink corn in planting, harvesting, storage and transport.