DuPont Hid GAT Soy Failure for Years, Monsanto Says in Trial
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DuPont Co., the most valuable U.S. chemical company, didn’t tell investors for years that efforts to develop its own herbicide-tolerant soybean seeds had failed, Monsanto Co. told a jury at the start of a patent trial.
DuPont knew as early as 2006 that its GAT soybeans didn’t grow as well as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready beans and didn’t make the information public until 2009, George C. Lombardi, an attorney for Monsanto, said today at the start of a patent trial in St. Louis. Monsanto is suing DuPont for adding the Roundup Ready trait to make its product work, a patent infringement it said is worth as much as $1 billion.