Bayer-Monsanto announced a settlement that will resolve 95% of Roundup lawsuits and establish a clear way to manage future legal risks.
The company will pay $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve the current Roundup lawsuits, plus $1.25 billion to resolve future lawsuits.
The total amount of the settlement will range from $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion. Bayer did not admit any wrongdoing and still insists that Roundup does not cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Bayer said it will continue selling Roundup without cancer warnings.
The settlement was negotiated by the high-profile mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who called it a “constructive and reasonable” deal that will “enable the parties to bring closure to the current Roundup litigation.”
The litigation began in 2015, when the active ingredient in Roundup — glyphosate — was classified as a “probable human carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
As the number of lawsuits skyrocketed, Monsanto was hit with several massive jury verdicts, including a $280 award to a groundskeeper in 2018 and a $2 billion verdict to a husband and wife last year.
Rather than continue to roll the dice with the American court system, Bayer negotiated settlements to end most of the legal disputes it inherited when it bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018.
In addition to the $10 billion Roundup settlement, Bayer also said it will pay $400 million to settle “dicamba drift” crop damage lawsuits and another $820 million for most PCB water contamination lawsuits.
Source: Bayer settles bulk of Roundup cancer lawsuits for up to $10.9 billion