
Bayer Seeks End to Glyphosate Dispute
Bayer is attempting to resolve the uncertainties arising from the glyphosate litigation through a multi-billion dollar class action settlement.

Bayer is attempting to resolve the uncertainties arising from the glyphosate litigation through a multi-billion dollar class action settlement.

Bayer has seen its share of turbulent shareholder meetings, and the event on Apr. 28 is likely to continue in that vein, though it would be tough to top 2019. In that year, when anger over lawsuits involving Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide boiled over, 55% voted not to discharge CEO Werner Baumann and the managing board of their responsibilities.

After months of anticipation, the US Supreme Court has deflated Bayer’s hopes that the court’s conservative majority would vote to hear its appeal to overturn a $25 million appeals court verdict in favor of Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer has won its fourth consecutive appeal of a US court case previously decided in favor of a plaintiff who claimed that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Despite the expectations of many, given the broad coverage in media of all types – and the case’s mention on the docket for Jun. 13 – the US Supreme Court has remained silent on whether or not it will hear Bayer’s petition on packaging labels for Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide.

Bayer’s advice to shareholders expressing concern about the development of the company’s stock at its early May annual general meeting, to bide their time and wait for the US Supreme Court to deal with the issue of warning labels for agrochemicals packaging, seems to have been too hasty.

Bayer has settled a collection of claims from US plaintiffs that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide caused their cancer, the US newspaper St. Louis Dispatch reports. This, it said, avoids a publicity-sensitive trial that was due to start this week in the Missouri city that was Monsanto’s global headquarters before it was acquired by the German group for $63 billion in 2018.

Bayer has now won two of five cases in which US plaintiffs have charged that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused their cancer. All the cases have been heard in the state of California. In the second consecutive victory for the German group, a jury in San Bernardino County found that Roundup was not the cause of a woman's non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

During its Dec. 10, session, the US Supreme Court has said it will review Bayer’s petition to have the country’s highest court decide whether a federal district court’s judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman should be allowed to stand.

Bayer has won its first case in four US lawsuits charging that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide caused a person’s cancer. A jury in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 5 rejected a mother’s charge that her spraying Roundup on the family’s property exposed her son to the pesticide and caused him to develop Burkitt’s lymphoma – a form of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

A US federal appeals court has upheld a $25 million jury award for the plaintiff in one of three major court battles Bayer has fought and lost over claims linking Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In the ongoing litigation over whether Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide causes cancer, Bayer has suffered another setback, losing its appeal of the first of three US jury verdicts against it – even though the California Court of Appeals in San Francisco further slashed the 2018 damage award to $20.4 million.

Bayer has backed away from plans to create a science advisory panel to help decide still outstanding claims from US plaintiffs that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused their non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Bayer’s relief over its recent deal to settle three-quarters of its outstanding Roundup-related US lawsuits for more than $10 billion altogether could be short-lived.

After nearly a year of deliberation, Bayer has clinched a deal to settle three-quarters of its outstanding lawsuits from US plaintiffs who claim that Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide Roundup with the active ingredient glyphosate caused their non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL).


Bayer has set aside €480 million to defend lawsuits brought by people who claim that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused their non-Hodgkins lymphoma, CEO Werner Baumann said at the company’s annual general meeting on Apr. 28.

















