New trouble for Bayer in U.S. legal dispute over alleged cancer risks from herbicides containing glyphosate: A jury in Philadelphia recently awarded 83-year-old Ernie Garanci, who blamed glyphosate for his cancer, $25 million in compensatory and $150 million in punitive damages, stopping Bayer, another company negative to the company. It also announced that it intends to challenge the verdict. The two court defeats come within a week after the DAX group previously won nine cases.
Bayer also insists it is committed to the safety of glyphosate. The amount of damages may be even lower in the latest case. Judges in the United States often award large sums to plaintiffs, which judges reduce.
A wave of lawsuits followed the verdict
With its $60 billion acquisition of Monsanto in 2018, Bayer took on the issues surrounding Roundup, a herbicide containing glyphosate. In the same year, the first judgment against the DAX group triggered a wave of lawsuits in the United States. In 2020, Bayer launched a billion-dollar plan to settle most lawsuits — without admitting liability.
Bayer has already processed most of the cases. In the spring, when business figures for 2022 were released, of the approximately 154,000 claims registered, around 109,000 were either compared or said not to meet the comparability criteria. In addition, Bayer could – by the end of 2022 – create a cushion of US$6.4 billion, which the group has set aside for settlements of existing and future glyphosate lawsuits.
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