- US lawyers keep up pressure on Bayer over Roundup Archived Message
Posted by Gerard
on August 7, 2023, 7:45 pm, in reply to "Thx for the update Gerard, was waiting to see what the new toxin was going to be... (nm)"
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"US trial attorneys are attempting to ratchet up pressure on Bayer over its Roundup weedkiller despite the company attempting to turn the page on litigation alleging that the herbicide causes cancer. Spending on adverts in the US soliciting people with Roundup claims jumped by 33 per cent from May to June, to $850,000. X Ante, a firm that tracks litigation advert spending, counted that about 7,300 television adverts for Roundup claims aired in June, double the number in May and the most since August 2020. Bayer said in June 2020 that it would spend up to $10.9bn to settle Roundup litigation, including current and future claims. The jump in advertising comes as Bill Anderson, the German conglomerate’s new chief executive, prepares to face analysts for the first time on Tuesday when the company reports earnings. The spending underscores that trial attorneys are still pursuing payouts from Bayer five years after a jury initially awarded $289mn in a Roundup case. The landmark award triggered thousands of additional mass tort claims that exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer took over the litigation in 2016 after acquiring Monsanto in a $63bn acquisition that has proved controversial. The company insists that Roundup is safe and does not cause cancer. But the legal and financial uncertainty over the Roundup litigation has been a major drag on the group’s share price, which has fallen 46 per cent over the past five years, underperforming the wider German stock market. With a stock market value of just €51bn, the company is currently worth less than Bayer on its own before the Monsanto acquisition. Bayer has faced 154,000 claims from Roundup users who attribute their cancer to the weedkiller. By the end of last year, 109,000 of those cases were settled or dismissed. Bayer has set aside $6.4bn for future Roundup litigation costs, and S&P has estimated that Bayer will spend $3bn on litigation overall this year. Even after the settlement was announced, Roundup cases have continued to go to trial in various US courts. Bayer says it has won seven straight trials, a string of victories that has calmed investor anxieties over litigation liabilities. But at least six cases are scheduled to go to trial in Philadelphia in October. The company told the Financial Times that it did not want to “speculate on the potential actions of litigation lawyers” but stressed that it was making “good progress” with regard to processing of the Roundup risks. Two years ago, it decided to stop selling glyphosate on the American retail market as part of a strategy to limit the risks of new claims in the future. This was implemented this year and the product is still named Roundup. Bayer has employed some unusual tactics as it continues to fight the cases. It recently reached a $100,000 settlement agreement in one case requiring the plaintiff to appeal against the dismissal of his claim that he was not properly warned about Roundup’s cancer risks, according to a decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The move, according to one of the appeals court judges, appeared to be aimed at creating a “circuit split” — by getting two conflicting rulings on a legal issue, in this case regarding Roundup’s labelling — that would increase the odds that the US Supreme Court would hear the case. The case is ongoing. The recent surge in Roundup advert spending “indicates that attorneys for the plaintiffs believe that future jury awards or settlements are possible and even likely despite previous setbacks,” said Rustin Silverstein, president and founder of X Ante, which uses data from Vivvix CMAG data and other sources. Some investors fear that the uncertainty over Roundup’s financial burden could limit Anderson’s room for manoeuvre with regard to a potential separation of Bayer’s crop science business and its pharma unit, an option that Anderson previously said was on the table However, Guillaume Benoit, analyst at S&P who covers Bayer, warned that new cases created the risk that Bayer might have to face payments related to glyphosate litigation that go beyond what it has currently provisioned. The architect of the Monsanto deal, Bayer’s previous chief executive Werner Baumann, left the company early this year following pressure from shareholders who have been calling for a break-up of the company. His successor Anderson, who previously oversaw the pharma business of Swiss rival Roche, praised the industrial logic of the Monsanto acquisition. Two months after Anderson became chief executive, the group wrote off €2.5bn on the glyphosate-related assets as it braces for a persistent fall in demand and lower prices. Because of this impairment, the company is on track to record a €2bn loss in the second quarter, it announced last month when it lowered its full-year outlook.": https://www.ft.com/content/36f28381-1cc2-4ce7-9053-7c172605d08c |