Crop Protection Products Loyalty Program

The Crop Protection Products Loyalty Program MDL, centralized in the Middle District of North Carolina before Judge Thomas D. Schroeder since February 2023, consolidates claims that a loyalty-rebate structure used by major agrochemical manufacturers foreclosed competition from lower-cost generic crop protection products, raising the effective price paid by distributors, retailers, and ultimately farmers who purchase herbicides and pesticides. The claimant pool spans the agricultural supply chain rather than end consumers, which means the underlying transaction records — purchase volumes, rebate program terms, and pricing history with the manufacturer defendants — are business records rather than personal documentation, and claim strength turns on how well a given claimant can document its purchasing relationship and the rebate terms it was subject to.

For a funder, this is a loyalty-and-exclusion antitrust theory rather than a straightforward horizontal price-fixing claim, which means damages proof depends on showing that the rebate structure itself — not simply higher list prices — foreclosed generic competition and inflated what claimants actually paid. That is a more fact-intensive showing than a conventional overcharge model, and funders will weight how detailed a claimant's rebate and purchase history is accordingly.

With 26 actions pending roughly three years into the docket's life, there should be a developing discovery record on the rebate program's actual structure and effect, which supports increasingly informed underwriting as the litigation matures. A distributor or retailer group with a meaningful volume of crop-protection purchases from the named manufacturers, or a firm representing multiple such claimants, is a reasonable candidate for portfolio-level commercial claim funding under Criterica Capital's commercial litigation finance program, priced against the strength of the rebate-exclusion theory and each claimant's documented purchase history.

This is a commercial supply-chain antitrust claim with no medical-lien component. A separate structural brief on how the loyalty-program theory is proceeding procedurally is available through Criterica Intelligence for firms assessing timing before committing capital.

Pre-settlement funding is a non-recourse purchase of a portion of the proceeds of a pending legal claim — not a loan. If the case does not result in a recovery, nothing is owed. Rates, fees, and repayment terms are disclosed in full in the funding agreement, which the applicant’s attorney reviews before signing. Availability and terms vary by state.