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FTC, states reach $35M settlement with Corteva over pesticide pricing

Corteva has agreed to a $35 million proposed settlement that the Federal Trade Commission says, “could lower pesticide prices for American farmers.”

According to the FTC, Corteva will dismantle its existing pesticides loyalty program which has limited distributors’ ability to do business with generic competitors that seek to enter the market after Corteva patents have expired.

The proposed order applies to all Corteva’s post-patent active ingredients. Corteva did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

A press release from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office indicates the agreement, “will provide relief to farmers who have long endured high pesticide prices by ensuring greater access to lower-cost generic pesticide products.”

The FTC says the settlement resolves a 2022 lawsuit that alleges Corteva implemented a post-patent loyalty program that paid distributors to block competitors from selling its cheaper generic products to farmers. According to the complaint, the alleged conduct allowed Corteva to maintain elevated prices, forcing American farmers to spend millions of dollars more for essential crop protection products.

The Illinois Attorney General says for a period of 10 years, the proposed order will prohibit Corteva from conditioning payments or other benefits to a distributor on that entity purchasing a high share of a given pesticide active ingredient from Corteva or similarly limiting its purchases of generic equivalents.

In a separate action, Corteva announced it has settled a lawsuit against Inari, the SEEDesign company. Corteva says as part of the agreement, Inari will destroy Corteva material it accessed from seed depositories and material developed from the deposits and assign to Corteva the intellectual property related to its edited versions of Corteva events. In addition, Corteva and Inari have agreed to negotiate certain licensing arrangements. Other terms of the settlement are confidential.