Inprotsa is a Costa Rican company which produces MD-2 pineapple, better known as Golden pineapple. Within the context of the company's opposition in the courts to a non-unanimous arbitral award recently issued in an arbitration with Del Monte, it states that Del Monte continues to engage in actions intended to confuse the market regarding rights it does not possess, in order to impede the free commercialization of the Golden pineapple.
For many years, Del Monte tried unsuccessfully to obtain exclusive rights over the Golden pineapple variety, without notifying the market and others of the results of its efforts.
The same arbitral award that Inprotsa is challenging establishes that the seed provided by Del Monte—as well as the vegetative material derived from such seed—throughout the years became the property of the producer (in this case Inprotsa), given that the seed is a fungible and movable good. Therefore, Inprotsa believes it is important to inform and to emphasize that it does not possess any Golden pineapples, seeds and/or vegetative material that is the property of Del Monte.
This is in addition to the problem Del Monte is facing that was mentioned in the study by BBC World regarding Del Monte’s activities to avoid tax payments in the country where the Golden pineapple is produced.
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