Bayer has suffered a defeat in a glyphosate trial: with an amount of $2.2 billion, US juries have sentenced the agricultural chemical and pharmaceutical company to the highest compensation payment to date in trials involving weed killers containing glyphosate. The plaintiff in Philadelphia, who was suffering from cancer, used the Roundup drug as a landscaper and also privately. He blames the weed killer for giving him non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Bayer wants to appeal. The company denies that glyphosate is carcinogenic. A spokesman criticized on Saturday that the verdict contradicts the scientific findings and assessments of the authorities. The question has been controversial in science for years. In November, the EU Commission extended the approval of the weedkiller for ten years.
The amount for damages of around 2.2 billion dollars (a good 2 billion euros) is made up of two parts. The jury awarded the man $250 million in compensation for losses and $2 billion in damages, the financial service Bloomberg reported from the courtroom on Friday.
“We are convinced that we have strong arguments on appeal to overturn this verdict or at least reduce the unconstitutionally excessive damages,” said Bayer’s statement. Even in cases that have been lost so far, the total damages have been reduced by more than 90 percent. Bayer points out that the company has prevailed in court in ten of the most recent 16 cases.
Bayer brought the problems surrounding the weed killer Roundup, which contains glyphosate, into its own hands in 2018 with the more than $60 billion takeover of the US company Monsanto. The first judgment against the DAX company followed in the same year. This set off a wave of lawsuits in the USA. The company was sentenced to pay damages in a number of glyphosate judgments, but was acquitted in other cases. Settlements were concluded in numerous cases.
In 2020, Bayer launched a billion-dollar program to settle the majority of lawsuits without admitting liability. According to Bayer, around 113,000 of the 160,000 cases brought by alleged victims have been completed so far. The group has set aside provisions for this amounting to $16 billion. Bayer emphasizes that it remains convinced of the safety of glyphosate.
Read at stern: If you want to protect vegetables and flower beds against snails, caterpillars and aphids, you don’t need a chemical weapon, but rather animal helpers. You can easily attract them if you follow a few simple rules.
