A jury in the US state of Georgia has ordered the multinational chemical company Bayer to pay $2.1 billion to a plaintiff who claimed its Roundup weed killer caused his cancer, the plaintiff’s law firms said.
The verdict, which Bayer said on Saturday it would appeal, is one of the largest legal settlements issued in a Roundup-related case and is the latest setback for the group, among the world’s largest makers of farm chemicals.
Bayer has paid about $10 billion to settle disputed claims that Roundup, based on the herbicide glyphosate, causes cancer. Worldwide, an estimated 60,000 further cases are pending, for which the group has set aside $5.9 billion in legal provisions.
The German pharmaceutical and biotechnology group acquired Roundup as part of its $63-billion takeover of the US agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018.
The Georgia verdict includes $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, according to a statement emailed to Reuters by the plaintiff’s law firms.
Bayer said in a statement 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,” it said.
Earlier this month, Bayer told US lawmakers 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.
Glyphosate is still available in Thailand. Authorities in 2019 initially planned to ban glyphosate but reversed their decision and instead restricted its use for domestic applications in crop cultivation, while banning paraquat and chlorpyrifos.
A Reuters investigation subsequently revealed that the reversal of the glyphosate ban was influenced by pressure from the US government and Bayer.
Emails between US government officials and Bayer showed that the company sought assistance from multiple high-level officials from the Department of Agriculture and the Office of the US Trade Representative.
Washington reportedly raised concerns with Bangkok about the potential impact of the ban on Thailand’s agricultural imports, the report said.