Canada Wheat Board directors gather on Parliament Hill to gather support to save the Canadian Wheat Board in Ottawa Nov. 15, 2011. (Chris Roussakis/QMI Agency)

OTTAWA - Lobby group Friends of the Wheat Board intends to carry on with a class-action lawsuit against the federal government, despite having its case to reinstate the board's monopoly shot down by Canada's top court Thursday.

The federal government brought in laws last summer to allow wheat and barley farmers to sell their commodities to anyone they so choose. Since the 1940s, farmers were compelled to sell grain through the $6-billion-a-year Wheat Board, which the Tories said curtailed market freedom.

A group called Friends of the Wheat Board filed a court application Sept. 19 to have the decision overturned, saying it gives a handful of multinational corporations greater stake in the Canadian grain sector.