It Took a Pandemic to Settle Bayer’s Roundup Suits
The German giant didn’t have much leverage until Covid-19 shut down jury trials.
Bayer still insists it’s safe.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
In late June, Bayer AG agreed to pay $9.5 billion to settle about 100,000 lawsuits that accused Roundup, the popular herbicide it acquired when it bought Monsanto in 2018, of causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The settlement came about even though Bayer adamantly insists that glyphosate, the core chemical in Roundup, is not a cancer agent, a position also taken by the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators around the world. It also came about after the plaintiffs won the first three cases that went to trial, including one last year in which a jury awarded $2 billion to a California couple. The plaintiffs’ lawyers had hoped to leverage those victories to extract $20 billion or even $30 billion from Bayer to settle the litigation.