A Kansas federal jury awarded nearly $218 million Friday to farmers who sued Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta over its introduction of a genetically engineered corn seed variety.

Syngenta vowed to appeal the verdict favoring four Kansas farmers representing roughly 7,300 growers from that state in what served as the first test case of tens of thousands of U.S. lawsuits assailing Syngenta’s decision to introduce its Viptera seed to the U.S. market before China approved it for imports.

The Kansas trial and a Minnesota one next month involving about 60,000 cases will provide guidance for how the web of litigation could be resolved.

Syngenta began selling Viptera in the U.S. for the 2011 growing season, but China didn’t approve it until December 2014. The lawsuits allege Syngenta’s move to market the seed variety before China cleared it for imports wrecked an important export market for U.S. corn, causing price drops. Court filings show Syngenta aggressively marketed the seeds even when it knew Chinese approval was going to be a problem.

Experts speaking for the farmers who sued said they estimate the economic damage at about $5 billion, though Syngenta has denied its actions caused any losses for farmers.

Sales of new homes rebounded in May, helped by strong sales gains in the South and West.

The Commerce Department says sales of new single-family homes rose 2.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 610,000. That followed a 7.9 percent drop in sales in April — the biggest monthly decline in eight months.

Sales gains of 6.2 percent in the South and 13.3 percent in the West overcame big declines of 25.7 percent in the Midwest and 10.8 percent in the Northeast.

The median price of a home sold last month rose to a record $345,800, up 16.8 percent from a year ago. Prices have been increasing as demand has outstripped supply.

Money-losing Japanese electronics and nuclear company Toshiba Corp. has until Aug. 10 to get auditors to sign off on its earnings statements, or else it faces the risk of getting delisted.

Tokyo-based Toshiba, whose U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. filed for bankruptcy in March, said Friday it received an extension of a June deadline to state its earnings for the fiscal year ending in March.

But it’s getting bumped down from the first to the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Toshiba said earlier this week it chose a consortium led by a Japanese government-backed fund as the preferred bidder to purchase its computer memory chip business.