The pharmaceutical and agricultural group Bayer wants to appeal against a judgment in the USA for compensation worth billions. “The verdict will not stand, we will definitely appeal against it,” said Bayer when asked. On Friday, a jury sentenced the company to pay more than $1.5 billion in a glyphosate trial.
Three former users of the weed killer Roundup were awarded corresponding payments. They blamed the controversial product for their cancer. The federal court jury in Jefferson City, Missouri, awarded James Draeger, Valorie Gunther and Dan Anderson a total of $61.1 million in compensatory damages and $500 million each in punitive damages. In the United States, juries often award large sums to plaintiffs, which judges often later reduce.
Bayer wants to take action against the ruling. The amount of punitive damages alone violates the American Constitution. “Unlike previous cases, the courts in recent cases improperly allowed plaintiffs to misrepresent the regulatory and scientific facts,” the group said in a statement.
Bayer has “strong arguments” to have the latest judgments revised. The group has won nine of the last 13 court cases and settled the majority of the lawsuits. “We will continue to defend the robust scientific and regulatory evidence in court, if necessary on appeal,” said the DAX group. Bayer remained convinced of the safety of glyphosate.
Bayer brought the problems surrounding the weed killer Roundup, which contains glyphosate, into its own hands in 2018 with its $60 billion takeover of Monsanto. In the same year, the first judgment against the DAX group followed, which set off a wave of lawsuits in the USA. In 2020, Bayer launched a billion-dollar program to settle the majority of the lawsuits – without admitting liability.
Bayer has already processed the majority of the lawsuits.
