Bayer AG has asked California’s Supreme Court to review a decision awarding US$ 20.5 million to a groundskeeper who claimed the company’s Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer, arguing the ruling was at odds with federal law and settled legal principles.
Bayer has agreed to delay part of a proposed settlement of allegations that its widely used weed killer Roundup caused cancer after a US judge questioned its plan to deal with future claims.
Bayer AG agreed to settle U.S. lawsuits claiming that its widely-used weed killer Roundup caused cancer for as much as US$10.9 billion after more than a year of talks, resolving litigation that has hit the company's share price.
U.S. federal appeals court on Monday blocked California from requiring that Bayer AG label its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup with a cancer warning, handing the company a victory in its ongoing litigation over the product.
German chemical giant Bayer is to appeal against a Missouri court's award of US$ 265m (£203m) to a US peach grower who blamed a herbicide for crop damage. Farmer Bill Bader sued Bayer and BASF, alleging that dicamba weed-killer drifted onto his orchard from nearby fields, destroying them.
The US Environmental Protection Agency said it finished a regulatory review that found glyphosate, the most widely used weed killer in the United States, is not a carcinogen.
Bayer, the world's largest maker of seeds and pesticides, said U.S. farmers were unperturbed by lawsuits seeking damages from Bayer for an alleged cancer-causing effect of glyphosate-based herbicides.
A pending US lawsuit over claims related to Bayer's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup has been delayed, the company said on Sunday with a new court date set for February 2020.
A U.S. judge on Tuesday said he would reduce a US$80 million damage award against Bayer AG to US$50 million or less in the case of a man who blamed his cancer on glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said the jury's US$75 million punitive damages award to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman in March could not stand.
The use of Bayer's contested weed-killer glyphosate, the subject of more than 10,000 lawsuits in the US over claims it causes cancer, will eventually die out, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the country's lower house on Wednesday.