World's Top Life Science Groups Reportedly Face Suits 
 
 September 13, 1999
 LONDON (Reuters) - The world's biggest life science companies 
 and grain processors will face a multi-billion-dollar antitrust 
 action to be launched in up to 30 countries later this year, the 
 Financial Times reported Monday.
 
 The unprecedented lawsuits would claim that companies such as Monsanto,
 DuPont and Novartis were exploiting bioengineering techniques to gain a
 stranglehold on agricultural markets, the newspaper said.
 
 It said the action was being brought jointly by the Foundation on
 Economic Trends, run by Washington-based biotech activist Jeremy
 Rifkin, and the U.S. -based National Family Farm Coalition, together
 with individual farmers across Latin America, Asia, Europe and North
 America.
 
 The Financial Times said it would be the biggest antitrust suit ever
 brought, with the possible exception of that against Microsoft (MSFT.
 
 It quoted Michael Hausfeld, of Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll -- one
 of 20 U.S. law firms that have agreed to take cases on a ``no-win
 no-fee'' basis, as saying: ``It has literally global implications.''
 
 The Financial Times said the move represented the first global
 challenge to controversial techniques for exploiting genetically
 modified (GM) crops commercially.
 
 Five companies -- Monsanto, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Aventis and DuPont
 -- controlled virtually all GM crops, the newspaper said.