GM WATCH COMMENT: Sometimes the nature of the companies promoting GMOs - and providing the data that's relied upon in approving them - is borne in on us in unambiguous terms.
In 2002 Monsanto was found guilty by an Alabama court of behaviour "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3698
In 2005 it was announced that Monsanto had to pay $1.5m in penalties as the result of a bribes scandal in Indonesia in which it sought to bypass controls on the screening of GM crops.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=58&page=1
Below Bayer has been caught out over conspiring with other manufacturers to inflate prices for certain plastics. The $18m settlement is the second multi-million-dollar settlement Bayer has had to make this year. The earlier case required a settlement of $55.3m.
And these are just the latest price-fixing conspiracies Bayer's been caught up in - see the list of recent cases below.
---
Bayer agrees to $18 million settlement in price-fixing case
The Associated Press, October 18, 2006
Bayer AG has agreed to pay $18 million ([Euros]14.3 million) to settle claims it conspired with other manufacturers to inflate the price of certain plastics, the second multi-million-dollar settlement the company has made this year regarding its polymer operation. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum in Kansas City, Kansas, approved the settlement, which covers the company's sales of polyester polyol-based products between Jan. 1, 1998 and Dec. 31, 2004.
The agreement also requires Bayer, headquartered in Germany, to cooperate with plaintiff attorneys as they continue their class-action lawsuit against former co-defendants Uniroyal Chemical Co. and Chemtura Corp., formerly known as Crompton Corp. Lungstrum also agreed to dismiss defendants Rhein Chemie Corp. and Rhein Chemie Rheinau GmbH, subsidiaries of Lanxess Corp., which was spun off from Bayer last year.
In August, Lungstrum approved a $55.3 million ([Euro]44 million) settlement by Bayer in a separate case involving the sale of polyether polyol. Bayer also agreed to help attorneys against former co-defendants BASF Corp., BASF AG, The Dow Chemical Co., Huntsman International Holdings LLC and Lyondell Chemical Co.
A Bayer spokesman provided a company statement Wednesday confirming the two settlements but declined to comment further. An attorney for the polyester plaintiffs didn't immediately return a phone call for comment.
Bayer disclosed in March that it had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department seeking information about its manufacture and sale of polyurethane products called MDI and TDI, along with other products.
Court documents say Bayer, Dow, BASF, Huntsman and Lyondell control the entire MDI and TDI markets and 75 percent of production of polyether polyol, a polyurethane material that is mixed with other substances to make foams used in furniture, automobile seats and other products.
Federal authorities two years ago consolidated 16 cases filed across the country against polymer manufacturers by customers who alleged the companies had gotten together to fix the price of urethane and urethane chemicals.