Associated Press Newswires
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - A group of national and international corn and biotechnology firms acted together to cause a collapse of the U.S. corn market, alleges a lawsuit filed by thousands of Taco Bell restaurants and others.
The class-action suit, filed Monday in Washington County Circuit Court, seeks millions of dollars in compensation and punitive damages for companies that allegedly lost business because they used a certain genetically altered corn in their products.
The case was brought on behalf of 4,600 Taco Bell restaurant franchises and owners in the United States; four Arkansas-based companies, Tyson Mexican Original Inc., T.B. Barrett Inc., Russ Taco Inc. and Dar-Taco Inc.; and two other companies - McLean Foods in North Carolina and Heartland Bells Inc. in Washington state.
Defendants include Aventis Cropscience USA Holding, a multinational biotechnology company; Garst Seed Co.; Gruma Corp., the largest producer and distributor of corn flour and tortillas in the United States; Azteca Milling LP, another producer of corn masa flour; and other still-to-be-discovered companies.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants developed, marketed and distributed genetically altered StarLink corn and participated in fraudulent, deceptive conduct that led to StarLink's use in hundreds of items that people eat.
The introduction of StarLink corn has resulted in "major disruptions of the food supply," according to the lawsuit.
StarLink is the trademark for a type of corn that is genetically altered to resist disease.
The suit alleges the defendants, assuming they could prove StarLink was fit for human consumption and motivated by the potential profit, implemented a marketing and distribution plan. The suit says that plan made it "not only foreseeable but inevitable" that StarLink would both cross-pollinate and be
physically commingled with corn produced from non-StarLink corn crops.
On Sept. 18, 2000, Friends of the Earth announced that a seven-box sample of Taco Bell Home Originals brand taco shells sold in a suburban grocery store contained StarLink corn. For the next two months, various food products thought to contain StarLink were recalled by manufacturers, distributors and retail food sellers.
Although Taco Bell promptly replaced all its taco shells with substitute products, "Taco Bell became the 'poster child' for concerns about StarLink and other genetically altered foods," the suit claims.
In October, numerous grocery chains recalled taco shells and tortilla chips when independent test labs found they contained StarLink corn.
On Jan. 23, Aventis agreed to compensate farmers in 17 states for losses from growing StarLink corn. Arkansas was not among those states.
