Sugar Farmers Reject Bid To Remove Key Defendants From False Advertising Lawsuit Against Corn Processors

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys for the Sugar Association and sugar farmers it represents late Monday filed papers in federal court accusing members of the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) of attempting to evade liability for their roles in the creation and sponsorship of false advertising by the CRA about the sweetener high-fructose-corn-syrup (HFCS).  Those claims by the CRA, which equate HFCS to natural sugar, have been made in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign underwritten by agricultural giants Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and their allies, who are members of the CRA.

Federal Judge Consuelo B. Marshall already has ruled that the sugar farmers have shown "a reasonable probability of success on their argument that the statements are false," a conclusion to which a recent study in Metabolism lends additional scientific support.  In their new filing, the sugar farmers allege that although several corporate members of the CRA voluntarily chose to fund, and "set the advertising campaign in motion and control it," in a "collaborative effort," they now seek to avoid the consequences of those acts.  The new filing argues that these companies devised a "strategy to escape liability for their roles in the misconduct" in which they seek to "hide behind an inadequately capitalized trade association they control, govern and fund."

"The legal strategy of Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill and the other manufacturers of HFCS seems to borrow from the false advertising script by trying to paint the lawsuit as something that it is not," said the farmers' lead attorney, Adam Fox of Squire Sanders in Los Angeles. "These companies are trying to run away from the charges against them and the liability that goes with it."

Both sides are expected to be back in front of Judge Marshall next month.

SOURCE Sugar Association

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