The Bayer subsidiary Monsanto has again in the US in court for alleged cancer risks of their weed killer Roundup with the controversial drug glyphosate in court. Late in the afternoon of Monday, San Francisco’s trial will begin with prosecutor Edwin Hardeman’s trial of Monsanto.
Hardeman blames Roundup of Monsanto for his disease of lymph node cancer. He accuses last year of the US Bayer AG for $ 63 billion (55.6 billion euros) acquired US seed giants also to have concealed the risks of the product.
For Bayer, the legal dispute is controversial, because it is a case „Bellwether Case“ in a mass case, which is indicative of many more lawsuits. Overall, Bayer faces around 1,300 US plaintiffs, with hundreds of lawsuits being filed with Judge Vince Chhabria in the northern district of San Francisco.
The Group vigorously rejects the allegations. For months, the litigation teams of the parties to the dispute have been in the process of preparation. Most importantly, which studies are admitted as potential evidence. The judge allowed some of the controversial documents as evidence. Chhabria had said at the end of January that the plaintiffs could bring in evidence for Monsanto’s alleged attempts to write about glyphosate as a ghostwriter during the first stage of the trial.
In addition, the company is said to have tried to influence the results of scientists and regulators. The group had hoped that these documents would be excluded from the pending lawsuits after Chhabria’s early January had limited evidence of corporate malpractice.
Shock at Bayer after the first judgment
After the selection of the jury has already taken place, the parties to the dispute to the trial start their opening statements. Afterwards, a hearing marathon is on the agenda – for the next four to five weeks, according to the court, around six hours of negotiations are planned on each day of the week, except on Thursdays.
The first verdict in a US legal dispute over glyphosate had caused quite a stir in August and made clear how risky the approximately $ 63 billion Monsanto acquisition is for Bayer. A jury of judges had ruled that the company would pay the cancer patient Dewayne Johnson a total of $ 289 million (€ 255 million). Although the competent judge lowered the sum drastically later, and even the lower compensation so far says little because the company has appealed. However, the fact that there was at all a guilty verdict was a shock that sent the Bayer stock on a downturn and strongly on the stock market value.
WHO: Probably carcinogenic
Glyphosate is highly controversial. The World Health Organization (WHO) had classified the chemical in 2015 as „probably carcinogenic to humans“. In 2017, the US Environmental Protection Agency completed a decade-long assessment of the risks of glyphosate, stating that the chemical is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans. The supervisory authorities in the EU and Germany, the home of the Bayer Group, also concluded that no risk of cancer stemmed from the herbicide
