1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: Now it's time for our daily Bloomberg Lawn Brief, exploring

2
00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:05,560
Speaker 1: legal issues in the news. And Today Bloomberg lahst Jun

3
00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:08,920
Speaker 1: Grosso and Michael Best discussed a loss for chemical maker

4
00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:12,720
Speaker 1: cent Genta in the first of several lawsuits over genetically

5
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,400
Speaker 1: modified corn. They speak with Anthony Sabino, founding partner of

6
00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:19,319
Speaker 1: Sabino and Sabino, and Eric Gordon, a professor at the

7
00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:22,800
Speaker 1: University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Eric, what were

8
00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:26,160
Speaker 1: the main issues in the trial? Here's what happened. C

9
00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:30,840
Speaker 1: Genta develops and sells genetically modified corn seeds. These seems

10
00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:33,479
Speaker 1: have been a huge success in the US despite the

11
00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:36,640
Speaker 1: GMO opponents. It came up with a new seed, got

12
00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:39,920
Speaker 1: it approved in the US, and started selling it in

13
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: the US. Had approval from a lot of countries, in fact,

14
00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:45,600
Speaker 1: countries that accounts for the majority of US corn sales

15
00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:49,879
Speaker 1: in the prior year. But Cyngenta had not received approval

16
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:54,000
Speaker 1: from China, and that's the crux of the litigation. So Anthony, what,

17
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 1: what exactly did the jury find here in ruling against

18
00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:00,560
Speaker 1: c Genta. Well, on the one hand, they found for

19
00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: liability on the part of Centa, Essentially that the jury

20
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:06,600
Speaker 1: agreed with the plant to farmers that c Genta was

21
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,280
Speaker 1: careless or possibly otherwise misrepresented the status of the Chinese

22
00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:13,199
Speaker 1: approofals of the corn. But what I found more remarkable

23
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,600
Speaker 1: was that the plant to farmers asked for two seventeen

24
00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:19,399
Speaker 1: million dollars damages, and the jury gave them every penny

25
00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:22,440
Speaker 1: they wanted. What again, I found remarkable was that the

26
00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:26,720
Speaker 1: jury clearly believed that the farmers had made out a

27
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:29,280
Speaker 1: case for every dollar they claimed they were owed, and

28
00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,440
Speaker 1: they gave them all those dollars. And certainly that says

29
00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: a lot to how persuasive was the economic evidence presented

30
00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:38,800
Speaker 1: by the farmers. And that's something that Center is going

31
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:40,160
Speaker 1: to have to go back to the drawing board for

32
00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:42,040
Speaker 1: these new cases that are coming up in a few

33
00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: weeks so. Eric Syngenta faces its next class action in

34
00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:49,080
Speaker 1: a Minnesota court in August, where farmers are seeking more

35
00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 1: than six hundred million dollars. Are the facts any different?

36
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:55,880
Speaker 1: There were basically the same. The problem is that seeds

37
00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 1: weren't approved. You couldn't sell corn from these seeds in China.

38
00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:04,080
Speaker 1: The farmers who sued were not farmers who planted those

39
00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:08,840
Speaker 1: new seeds. They were farmers that didn't plant the new seeds,

40
00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:13,200
Speaker 1: So what are they doing in court? Well, it turns

41
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:14,960
Speaker 1: out that a couple of years after the launch of

42
00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:20,920
Speaker 1: the new seeds, Chinese officials supposedly detected traces of the

43
00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:24,679
Speaker 1: not approved corn in other corn ships from the US,

44
00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 1: and China started rejecting millions of tons of US corn shipments.

45
00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:32,800
Speaker 1: The farmers say we were hurt because when China stopped

46
00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,160
Speaker 1: importing US corn, the price of corn dropped, and that

47
00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:39,320
Speaker 1: price dropped hurt all of us, not just farmers who

48
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:42,640
Speaker 1: use in Gentis seeds. As Eric Gordon, a professor at

49
00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:46,160
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan Raw School of Business, and Anthony Sabino,

50
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:49,520
Speaker 1: founding partner of Sabino and Sabino, speaking with Bloomberg Law

51
00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 1: host Jing Grosso and Michael Best. You can listen to

52
00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:54,520
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall Street Time here

53
00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:57,760
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio and Now. Among the top legal stories

54
00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,359
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Law to Sheba is suing Western Digital in

55
00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:05,040
Speaker 1: a Japanese court, asking for one point one billion dollars

56
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:07,400
Speaker 1: in damages and seeking to stop the U S company

57
00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:10,399
Speaker 1: from interfering in the sale of its chip unit. Two

58
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:13,600
Speaker 1: companies that became manufacturing partners in a chip business last

59
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:17,679
Speaker 1: year after Western Digital acquired sand Disc. Now it's invoking

60
00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,520
Speaker 1: an arbitration clause in that agreement in an attempt to

61
00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:23,760
Speaker 1: block a sale of the unit. That record two point

62
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,120
Speaker 1: seven billion dollar antitrust fine for Google could be just

63
00:03:27,280 --> 00:03:30,160
Speaker 1: the start of a troubling new phase. Lawyers say the

64
00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:34,000
Speaker 1: European Union's action effectively puts Google on parole for years

65
00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:37,000
Speaker 1: to come. The EU warrants at a crackdown on Google's

66
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,400
Speaker 1: shopping searches service sets a precedent that could be used

67
00:03:40,440 --> 00:03:44,000
Speaker 1: to examine the company's behavior in other areas, and that

68
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:46,600
Speaker 1: is this morning's Bloomberg Law Brief. You can find more

69
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,840
Speaker 1: legal news at Bloomberg Law dot com and Bloomberg b

70
00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:53,720
Speaker 1: n A dot com. Attorneys will find exceptional legal research

71
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,080
Speaker 1: and business development tools there as well. Visit Bloomberg Law

72
00:03:57,160 --> 00:03:59,880
Speaker 1: dot com and Bloomberg b NA dot com from more

73
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:00,480
Speaker 1: information