Syngenta Crop Protection just won a forum battle against its insurers - and the ruling carries a pointed lesson about litigation strategy.
In a decision handed down on December 17, 2025, the Delaware Superior Court denied a motion by a coalition of insurers seeking to dismiss or stay Syngenta's long-running insurance coverage action in favor of a parallel proceeding in London. Judge Sheldon K. Rennie found the insurers had not shown sufficient inconvenience and hardship to justify pulling the case out of Delaware, where it has been actively litigated for more than four years.
The dispute traces back to Syngenta's legacy exposure from its predecessors' manufacture and distribution of paraquat. Syngenta is facing lawsuits alleging that paraquat it manufactured or distributed caused people various forms of harm. In search of coverage, the company filed suit on May 17, 2021, against a broad group of insurers, including Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, AIG entities, Zurich, Allstate, and Employers Insurance Company of Wausau, among others.
In November 2023, Syngenta also filed a claim form in London, which it says was meant to toll statutes of limitation. But that action has barely moved - no Particulars of Claim have been filed, and no discovery has been taken.
The insurers saw an opening in March 2025 when the Court, after dismissing certain policies for lack of personal jurisdiction, remarked that "Delaware has little interest in adjudicating this dispute, as this dispute is really one that belongs in London." The insurers seized on that statement and filed their motion in May 2025.
It did not work.
Judge Rennie applied Delaware's Cryo-Maid factors and found that the key considerations favor keeping the case in Delaware. Discovery has been extensive - Syngenta alone has produced over 6.4 million documents comprising more than 52 million pages. Transferring that volume to London, the Court noted, could foreseeably result in additional briefing, a review of English evidence rules, and a potential review of millions of disputed documents.
On practical grounds, the Court was even more direct, finding this factor weighed "overwhelmingly" in favor of the Delaware Action. With a docket exceeding 700 entries and motions for summary judgment already pending, staying the case would substantially delay resolution. The London proceeding, by contrast, has been relatively dormant since its filing.
The Court also weighed the risk of inconsistent judgments and concluded that this concern actually supports continuing in Delaware. An English court, the Court reasoned, could be expected to respect its findings under comity and collateral estoppel.
For the insurance industry, the takeaway is hard to miss. Insurers who participate in years of active litigation and then seek to move the fight to a different forum face a difficult path - particularly when the alternative forum has seen no meaningful activity. The Court's decision reinforces that a plaintiff's choice of forum carries real weight in Delaware, and waiting four years to challenge it does not help the case for hardship.
The coverage dispute remains pending before the Delaware Superior Court.
