After its $63 billion takeover of Monsanto 2018, Bayer is still in the weeds with Roundup-related lawsuits.
This week, the German drug giant said that it has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court defeat that kept the company on the hook for $25 million in punitive and compensatory damages. In that verdict, a Ninth Circuit panel upheld a 2019 decision that sided with a California man who claimed that the popular weed killer made by Monsanto caused his lymphoma.
That case was one of several appeal verdicts that Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, lost, and the company maintains that the decisions go against product clearance protocols from regulators.
“The Ninth Circuit’s errors mean that a company can be severely punished for marketing a product without a cancer warning when the near-universal scientific and regulatory consensus is that the product does not cause cancer, and the responsible federal agency has forbidden such a warning," the company said.
Although Bayer made a settlement deal with plaintiffs last year, it did not strike an agreement on future lawsuits because the company plans to keep Roundup on the market.
The cost of handling Monsanto’s litigation troubles has been significant. Bayer originally set aside $11.6 billion to handle litigation costs but then last month took another provision of $4.5 billion in case the Supreme Court case doesn’t go its way.
Bayer said it plans to replace glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — with other ingredients for its residential product.
