Summary
A Georgia jury ordered Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, to pay $2.1 billion in damages to John Barnes, who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from using Roundup weed killer.
The award includes $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, marking one of the largest settlements in Roundup litigation.
Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, plans to appeal, disputing claims that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, causes cancer despite ongoing legal battles and scientific controversy.
The company faces over 177,000 lawsuits and has allocated $16 billion for settlements.
I still don’t get what they thought, buying Monsanto of all the companies they could have bought.
By purchasing Monsanto, Bayer is far and away the largest agriculture company in the world.
And they bought a liability.
They bought SOME liability.
And a bad name. At least in Germany this wasn’t perceived as a good idea.
Imagine how juicy of a deal it is if it was worth all the bad will AND litigations. Is Bayer still German? Funny how a leader in GMO can be based in Europe now.