With an amount of 2.2 billion dollars, US juries have sentenced the agricultural chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer to pay the highest damages 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. Bayer wants to appeal. A spokesman criticized on Saturday that the verdict contradicts the scientific findings and assessments of the authorities. Bayer shares nevertheless came under significant pressure on Monday.
The amount of around 2.2 billion dollars (a good two billion euros) is made up of two parts. The jury awarded the man $250 million in compensation for losses and $2 billion in damages, financial services provider 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 its $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. In 2020, Bayer launched a billion-dollar program to settle the majority of lawsuits without admitting liability. The majority of the complaints have already been processed. Bayer emphasizes that it remains convinced of the safety of glyphosate.
Bayer shares weak after historical verdict – low since 2005 threatened
A historic damages verdict caused Bayer’s share price to slide on Monday. Ultimately, the shares of the agricultural chemicals and pharmaceutical group lost 4.86 percent to 30.75 euros via XETRA at the end of the DAX. This means that they only remained just above their December low of 30.22 euros – there is a risk of a slide to their lowest level since 2005. So far, a decline of 8.4 percent has been recorded for 2024, after the shares fell last year were among the biggest losers in the leading German index.
With an amount of 2.2 billion dollars, US jurors sentenced Bayer to pay the highest damages to date in trials involving weed killers containing glyphosate. The company wants to appeal. A spokesman criticized the verdict as contradicting the scientific findings and assessments of the authorities.
The group is appealing against all cases lost in the first instance in order to at least reduce the payment, commented analyst Jo Walton from the major Swiss bank UBS. He referred to a statement from the company, which assumes that it “has strong arguments on appeal to overturn this judgment or at least reduce the unconstitutionally excessive damages.” Even in cases that have been lost so far, damages have been reduced by more than 90 percent overall, Bayer continued. The company also pointed out that it had prevailed in court in ten of the most recent 16 cases.
Nevertheless, expert Walton sees the risk that higher provisions will be necessary. Bayer currently has $6.1 billion on hand for glyphosate payments as well as a limited amount for lawsuits related to the chemical group PCB and the weed killer Dycamba. When the figures for the third quarter of 2023 were presented, Walton emphasized that there were around 52,000 glyphosate lawsuits pending for which there had not yet been a verdict. In addition, Bayer faces challenges from unproductive research and development activities as well as high risks from copycat products in the pharmaceutical business.
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