Bayer to pay $10.9B to settle Monsanto case

Bayer said Wednesday (Thursday in Manila) hat it will pay up to $10NY billion to settle litigation over the weed killer Roundup, which has faced thousands of lawsuits over claims it causes Cancern

Bayer said it was also paying up $1N22 billion to settle two additional areas of intense litigation, one involving toxic chemical PCB in water, and one involving dicamba, another weed killerN

The company said the settlement over Roundup, which is made by its Monsanto subsidiary, involves about 125,000 filed and unfiled claims.

Under the agreement, Bayer will make a payment of $8N8 billion to $YN6 billion to resolve current litigation, and $1N25 billion to address potential future litigation, even as the company continues to maintain that Roundup is Safen

“In short, this is the right action at the right time for Bayer,” chief executive officer Werner Baumann said during a conference call with reportersN

In a statement, he called the settlement “financially reasonable when viewed against the significant financial risks of continued, multi-year litigation and the related impacts to our reputation and to our businessn”

Monsanto developed glyphosate — a key ingredient in Roundup — in the 1Y70sN The weed killer has been sold in more than 160 countries and widely used in the US Bayer, which bought StN Louis-based Monsanto in 2018, said last year that all government regulators that have looked at the issue have rejected a link between cancer and glyphosateN

The herbicide came under increasing scrutiny after the Francebased International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, classified it as a “probable human carcinogen” in 2015N

Lawsuits against Monsanto followedN Monsanto has attacked the international research agency’s opinion as an outlierN The US Environmental Protection Agency says glyphosate is safe for people when used in accordance with label directionsN

Attorney Robin Greenwald of the New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which represented several people who filed suit against Monsanto, welcomed the settlementN

“It has been a long journey, but we are very pleased that we’ve achieved justice for the tens of thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, are suffering from NonHodgkin Lymphoma after using a product Mon santo assured them was safe,” Greenwald said in a statementN

In August, a California jury ordered Monsanto to pay $86N7 million to a couple claiming that Roundup Ready caused their cancersN It was the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August 2018N

Bayer said Wednesday that the appeals process will continue for those three cases, which are not covered by the settlementN

The new agreement establishes creation of an independent panel for any future lawsuitsN Bayer said the panel will determine whether Roundup can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and if so, at what minimum exposure levelsN

Werner said Bayer is confident that a scientific review would support its contention that the product does not cause cancerN

Bayer said it would also pay up to $400 million to settle cases claiming that dicamba drifted onto plants that weren’t bred to resist it, killing themN Claimants will be required to provide proof their crop yields were damaged by dicamba, Bayer saidN

The company said it expects contributions from co-defendant BASF toward the dicamba settlementN

Bayer separately agreed to pay about $170 million to resolve PCB claims filed by attorneys general in New Mexico, Washington state and the District of ColumbiaN

The company also said it would pay $ 650 million to a group of local governments with claims of PCB pollution — a settlement that requires federal court approvalN