When E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. reached a $1.75 billion settlement on claims that it infringed a Monsanto Company patent, the two companies agreed that DuPont would be able to appeal an embarrassing ruling that it committed a “fraud on the court.” That appeal ended on Friday in a ruling that DuPont acted in bad faith but didn’t engage in fraud.
In a 20-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit refused to vacate a 2011 sanctions order that put DuPont on the hook for $1 million in attorney fees and barred it from raising certain defenses. The Federal Circuit agreed with U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber in St. Louis that DuPont engaged in “vexatious” conduct by making arguments in the case that contradicted internal DuPont emails. However, the court ruled that Webber shouldn’t have thrown around the term “fraud on the court.” According to Federal Circuit, fraud on the court refers to more egregious conduct such as “bribery of a judge or jury or fabrication of evidence by counsel.”
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