The Global Seed Market, Competition Law and Intellectual Property Rights: Untying the Gordian Knot

Abstract

The paper explores the competition dynamics of the global seed market. It documents the growth strategies of the major seed companies, in particular their M&A activity and their reliance on complex intellectual property strategies in order to offer a one stop shop solution to farmers. Recent merger activity in this sector (the Monsanto bid to buy Syngenta, the DuPont and Dow merger deal, ChemChina's bid to buy Syngenta) illustrates its rapid transformation from an already concentrated industry to a tight oligopoly on a global scale. The increasing global consolidation of this industry raises new challenges for competition law enforcement authorities dealing with the emergence of new powerful actors at the factor of production (input) level, in view of the broader concerns animating public policy in the food sector and the existence of a nexus of international commitments for biodiversity, sustainability, the right to food etc. By exploring this under-studied but fascinating area of competition law enforcement we open the debate over the inclusion of broader public interest concerns in competition policy and the consideration of its distributive impact from a global perspective.

The Wizards of Svalöf

“…M&A have played a key role in the evolution of the seed industry worldwide (Srinivasan 2003, Moretti and Matringe 2006, Howard 2009, Fuglie et al 2011, Pardey et al 2013, Bonny 2014, Howard 2015, Lianos et al 2016. The trend started in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s when the high sales of hybrid seeds, mainly corn, attracted the attention of several chemical, oil and grain trading companies and entered the industry through synergies with seed companies.…”

“…IPRs can block product development and generate "patent thickets". As the interdependency among plant breeders on contractual licensing arrangements was increasing, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), both domestically and internationally, provided a way to aggregate and control the relevant IPRs (Nilsson 2007, Howard 2015, Lianos et al 2016, Hendrickson et al 2019.…”

“…Previous research has investigated the link between IPRs, consolidation and ownership structures (for example full ownership, joint ventures, etc.) for major actors on a global scale (Howard 2009, Lianos et al 2016, Bonny 2017. To the best of our knowledge, no attempt has been made to map the M&A that have taken place in the Swedish seed industry, or their impact on the use of Swedish-bred cultivars.…”

Global Governance of Antitrust and the Need for a BRICS Joint Research Platform in Competition Law and Policy

“…Increasing levels of market concentration have become the rule, rather than the exception in various sectors of the American and European industry, in crucial, from a social welfare perspective, sectors such as agriculture, retailing, automobiles, banking and a number of manufacturing industries. 145 The upstream agriculture supply industries provide an interesting example of this concentration trend 146 . These high concentration levels may affect consumers and industries in BRICS and other emergent economies, thus building the case for a more active approach from BRICS towards these industries and a concern over global concentration and stealth consolidation through distorporation.…”

Optimality of Social Choice Systems: Complexity, Wisdom, and Wellbeing Centrality

“…These efforts are reminiscent of the tobacco industry's fierce campaign to confuse the public about smoking-cancer links [103,104]. One can also question the antisocial practices of the banking, pharmaceutical, agriculture, and sugar industries [105,106,107,108,109,110]. The point is not that a few executives or a few companies or industries are bad actors-it is that capitalism rewards selfishness.…”