WASHINGTON, DC – Bayer has announced a massive settlement of court cases involving its Roundup and dicamba products and PCB water litigation with no admission of fault.
The company says it will pay a total of $10.1 to nearly $11 billion dollars to settle 125,000 filed and unfiled claims over Roundup. Bayer will also pay up to $400 million in dicamba drift litigation and $820 million for most PCB water litigation.
The company said that before deciding to settle, it considered the alternative course of continuing to litigate Roundup™ cases. In the company’s risk assessment, potential negative outcomes of further litigation, including more advertising and growing numbers of plaintiffs, upwards of twenty trials per year and uncertain jury outcomes, and associated reputational and business impacts, likely would substantially exceed the settlement and related costs.
Werner Baumann is CEO of Bayer and told reporters, “We are settling these cases solely to enable us to move forward and focus on the needs of our customers.”
Baumann says the vast majority of the settlement goes for Roundup litigation and up to $400 million goes for drift damage lawsuits from 2015 through 2020, except for Bader peach farms in southeast Missouri which was awarded at a jury trial.
“We stand strongly behind our XtendiMax herbicides with vapor grip technology and continue to enhance our training and education efforts to help ensure growers use our products successfully.”
Customers, including farmers and other professional users who depend on glyphosate-based herbicides for their livelihoods, will see no change in the availability of Roundup™ products under the Roundup™ agreements.
Bayer says it will set up a Class Science Panel, subject to court approval, for future Roundup cases.
Cash payments related to the settlements are expected to start in 2020. Bayer currently assumes that the potential cash outflow will not exceed $5 billion in 2020 and $5 billion in 2021; the remaining balance would be paid in 2022 or thereafter.
