ADVISORY, March 20, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
| When: | March 21, 2012 – Hearing starts at 9:00 am and is expected to last for about an hour. |
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What: |
The hearing in an important battle for nutrition-minded American consumers will take place in federal Judge Consuelo Marshall's courtroom in Los Angeles. Involved is a suit by a coalition of sugar farmers' cooperatives and other sugar producers, which have accused the agribusiness conglomerates Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and others of falsely advertising high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as a natural product no different from real sugar. Now, the defendant companies are seeking to dismiss the lawsuit to escape liability by arguing misleadingly that the challenged advertising is run by their trade association, and not directly by them. |
| Where: | Courtroom of Judge Consuelo Marshall |
| 312 N. Spring Street | |
| Court Room 2 – 2nd Floor |
Background on the case:
Agribusiness giants Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and others who produce high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are returning to federal court in an attempt to escape responsibility for the false advertising that equates HFCS with natural sugar. Sugar farmers and other sugar producers have filed a complaint in Los Angeles federal court that charges that the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) and its corporate members that produce high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), including Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and others, have engaged in a "conspiracy" deliberately designed to "deceive the public" about the nature of that product. The complaint specifically alleges that CRA's member companies initiated, funded and controlled the advertising—and reaped exclusively its benefits—through their domination of and placement of high-ranking executives on CRA's governing board, and by reserving the right (which they actually exercised) to subject CRA's decisions about the advertising campaign to company approval. The complaint contends that the makers of HFCS engaged in this enterprise to control advertising misleading to the public in an effort to counter negative publicity and consumer perceptions about HFCS.
Although CRA is now prepared to face these allegations, the complaint alleges that its largest corporate members are seeking to avoid liability by hiding behind the trade association they have sponsored with "special assessments" earmarked to finance the challenged advertising in excess of $50 million—many multiples of CRA's ordinary operating revenue.
The complaint charges that the challenged advertising campaign characterizes HFCS as a "natural" product although it "has been commercially available only since the late 1960s, when Japanese researchers discovered a method of enzymatically transforming some of the glucose in corn syrup into fructose that does not naturally occur in the [corn] plant." The complaint also alleges that the advertising campaign attempts to "rebrand" HFCS as "corn sugar," which is "the approved label for a real and distinct corn starch product" governed by FDA regulations. Additionally, the complaint contends that the advertising campaign equates HFCS to sugar despite "clear molecular differences between HFCS and sugar and clear differences in how the human body processes them," potentially linking consumption of HFCS to a variety of health problems.
Late last year, Judge Marshall reviewed some preliminary submissions of evidence and issued an order stating that the plaintiff sugar farmers had demonstrated "a reasonable probability of success" in proving these advertising claims are false.
Lead attorneys for the plaintiff sugar farmers, Mark Lanier and Adam Fox, will be available for comment outside the courthouse after the hearing.
B-roll of related footage to be available via satellite after the hearing for use by television news outlets.
For a copy of complaint, contact Justin Wilson at jwilson@levick.com