A town hall meeting focused on lawsuits being filed against Sygenta was held in Brighton today. The lawyers at the Ohio based law firm Wright & Schulte LLC are holding the meetings in Iowa and other states in an attempt to represent farmers, corn distributors and others who believe they incurred financial losses in 2013 due to the Agrisure Viptera corn seed.

They allege that Syngenta sold the trait without getting approval from foreign markets, and when Chinese regulators rejected U.S. corn shipments believed to contain Agrisure Viptera corn, prices for the commodity dropped significantly.

In a written statement, a representative for the company tells KCII News that Syngenta believes the lawsuits are without merit, adding that the trait was approved for cultivation in the USA in 2010 and commercialized in full compliance with regulatory and legal requirements. In addition, import approval was received from major corn importing countries. According to Syngenta, China was mainly a corn exporter at that time and corn prices started to drop before the country’s rejection of U.S. corn in November of 2013.

Data from the USDA shows that the price per bushel was $6.97 in June of 2013 and had dropped to $4.63 by October. China began allowing imports of the corn in December of 2014.