Frankfurt (Germany) (AFP) – German agrichemical giant Bayer said Wednesday that a US judge had granted preliminary approval for a multi-billion-dollar class settlement proposed by its subsidiary Monsanto over claims the Roundup weedkiller causes blood cancer. Bayer announced last month that Monsanto had put forward the settlement of up to $7.25 billion, seeking to draw a line under years of costly litigation.
Under the proposed agreement, Monsanto would make a series of declining annual payments for up to 21 years. Bayer has spent billions of dollars settling thousands of cases linked to Roundup since it acquired the weedkiller’s producer, the US agrichemical group Monsanto, in 2018. The International Agency for Research on Cancer considers glyphosate, one of Roundup’s ingredients, a probable human carcinogen, but Bayer says scientific studies and regulatory approvals show the weedkiller is safe.
Announcing the latest development Wednesday, Bayer said a judge in Missouri had granted preliminary approval for the settlement. “This is the first major step in putting this settlement into effect, and we remain confident that the long-term and well-financed class settlement plan, which is supported by leading plaintiffs’ law firms, warrants final approval by the court,” said a statement from the Leverkusen-based group. People potentially covered by the settlement will now be notified and will have 90 days to opt out or file objections, Bayer said. The court will then decide whether to grant final approval of the settlement, which will be subject to potential appeals.
Getting the settlement through would mark a milestone for Bayer, which otherwise faces a potentially still long and expensive legal road. About 67,000 Roundup cases are still outstanding. It said in February it had set aside 11.8 billion euros to deal with litigation as of September 2025, up from 7.8 billion euros previously. Bayer said then that it expected litigation payouts of about five billion euros for 2026 “on a first estimate.” The settlements did not contain or imply any admission of liability or wrongdoing, the group said.
The group earlier Wednesday announced it made a loss of 3.62 billion euros ($4.20 billion) in 2025 after it booked extra charges related to weedkiller claims. The loss was bigger than the 2.55 billion euros the firm lost in 2024. The settlement was necessary despite the Supreme Court agreeing to hear Bayer’s appeal against damages to a Missouri man who claims Roundup caused his cancer, company boss Bill Anderson said, warning that the firm otherwise faced being bogged down in lawsuits. “This settlement agreement is the right approach at the right time,” he said. “The company needs to move on. This has been a huge drag on Bayer for almost a decade.”
© 2024 AFP
