Subj:   GMW: Bayer agrees to $18 million settlement in price-fixing case    
Date:   10/19/2006 7:57:53 AM Central Standard Time 
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GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org
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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.gmwatch.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.
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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.            



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