Update on stopping the Plant Patent Giants

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Text COM:2650518 (36 lines)

Kusha (dd) ACBSP (Philadelphia, PA - USA)

24-Sep-99 04:25 +0630

Holistic Health (and related topics) [2186]

Update on stopping the Plant Patent Giants

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Monday September 13 2:16 AM ET

 

World's Top Life Science Groups Reportedly Face Suits

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's biggest life science companies and grain

processors will face a multi-billion-dollar antitrust action to be

launched in up to 30 countries later this year, the Financial Times

reported Monday.

 

The unprecedented lawsuits would claim that companies such as

Monsanto, DuPont and Novartis were exploiting bioengineering

techniques to gain a stranglehold on agricultural markets,

the newspaper said.

 

It said the action was being brought jointly by the Foundation

on Economic Trends, run by Washington-based biotech activist

Jeremy Rifkin, and the U.S. -based National Family Farm Coalition,

together with individual farmers across Latin America, Asia,

Europe and North America.

 

The Financial Times said it would be the biggest antitrust

suit ever brought, with the possible exception of that against

Microsoft (MSFT.

 

It quoted Michael Hausfeld, of Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll

-- one of 20 U.S. law firms that have agreed to take cases on

a ``no-win no-fee'' basis, as saying: ``It has literally global

implications.''

 

The Financial Times said the move represented the first global

challenge to controversial techniques for exploiting genetically

modified (GM) crops commercially.

 

Five companies -- Monsanto, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Aventis and

DuPont -- controlled virtually all GM crops, the newspaper said.

 

No independent confirmation of the report was immediately available.

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