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Three Strikes and You're Out! (Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2002 -- CropChoice news) -- According to Harvey Joe Sanner of Des Arc,
Ark., an original named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed in 1989, "The
Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) finally lost its thirteen year battle to deny
soybean farmers their day in court." After the CBOT imposed an "emergency
resolution" that drove major soybean buyers from the market and sent prices
plummeting, Sanner and five other soybean farmers filed the suit in 1989 on behalf
of all American soybean producers.
A jury was seated last week (Sept. 17) in Federal District Court in Chicago
and has heard the opening statements of both parties, as well as other
witnesses. Immediately before the jury was selected, the CBOT asked Federal Judge
Wayne R. Andersen to further delay the trial. He rejected the motion stating
that the farmers deserved a trial.
The CBOT also filed a motion with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to
restrict the size of the class represented in the lawsuit. In desperation, the
CBOT then asked that the Court of Appeals grant a last minute "stay" that would
have halted the trial. The appellate court rejected both of these motions.
Sanner declared, "If the CBOT had to play by the same rules that govern
baseball games and common criminals, it would be out of the game because it has
failed the three-strikes-and-you're-out rule."
In the CBOT's opening statement to the jury, Mr. Garrett Johnson stated
that it did "rescue" the short sellers in the market who were pressuring the
board to take action against the Ferruzzi Company, which was buying soybeans and
soybean futures contracts. He said that the CBOT had to protect the market.
But as Sanner pointed out, "Evidently, Mr. Johnson doesn't realize that
every soybean farmer in America was long in the market because they had 1988 crop
beans to sell and/or the 1989 crop growing in the field.
The Des Arc soybean farmer continued to say that the most outlandish
statement he has heard from legal counsel for the CBOT is that no farmer was harmed
in 1989, adding, "It is impossible to put in place a publicly announced
emergency order with the marketing disruptive force it carried without it
impacting all longs, whether they be in the cash market or futures market. Mr.
Johnson should realize that the CBOT has already lost its argument that farmers
did not have standing to sue the board because they deal in the cash market
versus the futures market. The courts have ruled that those markets are
intertwined so that when an action harms one, it also harms the other."
As the trial on South Dearborn Street in Chicago begins it second week,
Sanner concluded, "We expect further proof of market manipulation to be
presented. Currently, the class members were those farmers who sold soybeans from
July 11 to July 31, 1989. It is my wish that the evidence presented will
warrant all farmers to be considered in the class. This particular manipulation by
the CBOT knows no dates or boundaries. Notes from meetings of CBOT
officials reveal that someone suggested that they 'punish' the longs, and since
farmers are natural longs, it's plain to see that all soybean growers took a
beating." | |
