The German pharmaceutical and agrochemical company Bayer must pay significantly less in damages related to the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup, after the latest court ruling in the long-running case.
A court in Philadelphia reduced the damages awarded to the plaintiff by a jury from $2.25 billion (€2.1 billion) to $400 million (€367.5 million), court documents revealed late on Tuesday.
This was the highest amount of damages since the Roundup weedkiller litigation began in 2018, but Bayer announced that it would appeal.
The company said the court had reduced the "unconstitutionally high" damages, but "we do not agree with the court's decision on the merits."
The proceedings had serious errors which must be corrected, the company claimed. Bayer also points out that the company has prevailed in court in 14 of the most recent 20 cases. Most of the lawsuits have been settled, it added.
Bayer brought the problems surrounding the glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup into the company in 2018 with the acquisition of the US company Monsanto, which cost over $60 billion. A first judgement against the DAX-listed company followed in the same year. This set off a wave of lawsuits in the US.
In 2020, Bayer launched a multi-billion dollar scheme to settle the majority of the lawsuits without admitting liability.
A good portion of the lawsuits have been settled, but around 54,000 of approximately 165,000 cases were still open at the end of January.
The wave of glyphosate lawsuits has already cost Bayer €10 billion. The balance sheet provisions totalled $6.3 billion dollars (€5.7 billion) at the end of 2023.
The wave of glyphosate lawsuits has already cost Bayer €10 billion. Bayer has spent a total of €13 billion on legal disputes in the US, including lawsuits relating to PCBs and Dicamba, for the period 2019 to 2023. Balance sheet provisions totalled $6.3 billion (€5.7 billion) at the end of 2023.