Has Syngenta reached a settlement in the Viptera GMO corn litigation? Conflicting reports have surfaced with a mystery plaintiff announcing that it has reached a settlement with the agriculture giant, while Syngenta claims that no damages have been awarded in any Viptera GMO corn lawsuits.

No details of the alleged Syngenta GMO corn settlement have been released. However, the plaintiff’s lawyers claim that Syngenta settled out of court with them after facing astounding evidence regarding the release of Agrisure Viptera MIR 162 corn.

Syngenta denies this claim, stating that “no court has made any such determination.” Syngenta says that the company acted appropriately in this Viptera corn seed lawsuit and in defending itself against baseless accusations. In fact, Syngenta states that American farmers need technological innovations like Agrisure Viptera, which would ideally help increase their crop production.

Even now in the litigation process, Syngenta encourages farmers to educate themselves about Viptera corn and the Agrisure Viptera China lawsuits. Syngenta recommends a specific Syngenta-managed website for potential plaintiffs to visit, where the company supplies arguments that it acted legally in supplying Viptera GMO corn.

According to legal records, the Viptera MIR 162 GMO corn was approved to be cultivated in the United States in 2010. Syngenta insists that when their product was commercialized, the company followed all federal regulations and had obtained import approval from major corn export countries.

Overview of Viptera GMO Corn Allegations

Many farmers feel differently from the company’s opinion, as the Viptera corn has caused numerous problems for them, especially in the international corn market. Many lawsuits claim that when Syngenta sold American farmers the Viptera MIR 162 GMO corn, it had not yet been approved to enter certain countries, particularly China. Essentially, Syngenta sold shipments of Viptera GMO corn before China had approved the genetically modified strain of corn.

Allegedly, Syngenta was confident that China would approve the Viptera corn because Brazil and Argentina had both approved the corn to be exported to their countries in 2010. China, however, did not approve the GMO corn. After adopting a tougher stance against GMO corn, in 2013 Chinese authorities began rejecting American corn shipments that were found to contain the Viptera MIR 162 strain.

This caused a massive corn recall by China in November 2013, and has halted all corn shipments from the United States. This in turn caused a massive downturn in the American corn market, losing billions of dollars for the U.S. agriculture industry. Many individual corn farmers in the U.S. suffered as a result.

Before the Viptera corn was released, China was the third largest importer of U.S. corn, buying up to 2.5 million tons per year. In 2014, it was reported that China’s corn imports were down by 85 percent, at 375,000 tons. The lack of international corn purchases from China has cost American farmers between one to three billion dollars in losses so far, with legal experts predicting further losses.