June 11, 2026
A group of farmers have asked a North Carolina federal judge to preliminarily approve an $85 million settlement with Corteva Inc. to resolve antitrust claims that the company used loyalty rebate programs to artificially extend their patent monopolies over certain pesticides.
The unopposed multidistrict litigation deal is only with Corteva and does not cover a second defendant in the proposed class action, Syngenta Corp., in a suit that originally sought more than $2 billion in total damages.
“The recovery is significant, approximately 10% of the total damages plaintiffs’ expert calculated were caused by Corteva’s alleged misconduct and far more than the zero damages argued by Corteva,” the motion said. “In light of the nature and complexity of the litigation, the settlement agreement warrants preliminary approval.”
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The farmers are seeking to preliminarily approve a settlement a class of about 100,000 and appoint attorneys form Pinto Coates Kyre & Bowers PLLC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Korein Tillery LLC, Lowey Dannenberg PC and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP as settlement class counsel, and appoint the MDL named plaintiffs as class representatives.
Read Corteva Strikes $85M Deal in Farmer Pesticide Antitrust MDL.