The Club of Protected Plant Varieties (CLUB) and Nador Cott Protection have ratified the information about the decisions of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) that was released by its press release on 9 June and categorically deny having "falsified" any of the data. Unlike what Eurosemillas claimed in its press release, issued on 13 June, which makes serious allegations against the CLUB, the information published by the CLUB and Nador Cott Protection is backed by resolutions and reports issued by public bodies.
"We insist that the Board of Appeal has rejected the existence of additional differences to those initially identified in the decision of October 2014, fully dismissing the appeal made by the University of California and sentencing it to pay the costs. Furthermore, the Board of Appeal has admitted the position of Nador Cott Protection and the CLUB and has ruled out two of the four initially identified differences, noting that only two differences exist between the Tang Gold and Nadorcott: viable pollen and the number of seeds in cross-pollination conditions. Also, as regards the difference in the number of seeds in cross-pollination conditions, the Board of Appeal has rejected the appeal of the University of California and confirmed that this difference would be much smaller than that claimed by the university. The veracity of these statements can be checked directly through the website of the CPVO (http://www.cpvo.europa.eu/main/es/)," noted sources from the Club of Protected Plant Varieties.
"The Board of Appeal confirms what Nador Cott Protection and the CLUB have been advocating since the conflict between Tang Gold and Nadorcott started, which is that, if any differences exist between the two varieties, these differences, at best, would apply only to the fertility of the variety. And in these circumstances, as already announced by IVIA in its report of 17 September, 2014, the Tang Gold should be considered a variety essentially derived from the Nadorcott, an issue that is still pending resolution in the courts," they conclude.