A jury in the US state of Georgia has ordered German chemical giant Bayer to pay US$2.1bn to a plaintiff who claimed its Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer.
Bayer was quoted as saying on 22 March that it would be appealing the verdict, one of the largest legal settlements issued in a Roundup-related case, according to a 22 March Bangkok Post report citing a Reuters article.
To date, the company has paid about US$10bn to settle claims that Roundup, based on the herbicide glyphosate, causes cancer, the report said.
Worldwide, an estimated 60,000 further cases were pending, for which the group had set aside US$5.9bn in legal provisions, the report said.
Bayer acquired the Roundup brand as part of its US$63bn takeover of US agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018.
The Georgia verdict included US$65M in compensatory damages and US$2bn in punitive damages, according to a statement emailed to Reuters by the plaintiff’s law firms and quoted in the report.
Bayer was reported as saying that it disagreed with the jury’s verdict, as it conflicted with the “overwhelming weight of scientific evidence” and the consensus of regulatory bodies and their scientific assessments worldwide.
“We believe that we have strong arguments on appeal to get this verdict overturned and the excessive and unconstitutional damage awards eliminated or reduced,” the company said.
Earlier in March, Bayer reportedly told US lawmakers that it could stop selling Roundup unless they strengthened legal protection against product liability litigation, a financial analyst and person close to the matter told Reuters.
In an open letter to farmers posted on its website, the company said legal challenges were threatening their access to the product.
“Fighting against the litigation industry has cost more than US$10bn to date with no resolution.
“We cannot continue to sell an approved product and lose billions of dollars in doing so. Unfortunately, we are nearing the point where the efforts of the litigation industry will force us to stop selling this product.”
Bayer urged US farmers to take action, encouraging them to contact their state and federal legislators and explain how the potential loss of glyphosate could affect their operations.
The company, which has repeatedly said that decades of studies had shown Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, were safe for human use, said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had approved glyphosate as safe to use as directed.
