The lawsuits are proceeding against Syngenta for lost U.S. corn sales in 2014 tied to China’s rejection of several billion tons of corn with the Viptera trait. At the time China had not approved the MIR 162 biotech event. One of the many attorneys representing farmers looking to recover lost income is David Domina, with Omaha-based Domina Law Group. He says hundreds of cases were filed and have now been combined to be heard in three different district courts.

Domina says while they’re pleased the judges have agreed to hear the Viptera corn case, a settlement is also being encouraged by court.

He says they are arguing that since the corn was grown and allowed in export channels before the MIR-162 event was approved in China it essentially shocked the market. Domina says that resulted in market loss for farmers across the U.S. even though China was a very small corn export customer for the U.S.

Some law firms are expanding the claims to other commodities saying the market disruption negatively impacted the price of other grains. However, Domina says that’s difficult to prove and in some cases there were commodities such as U.S. sorghum and DDGs that actually experienced a price increase as China increased their imports as a substitute for corn.