Bayer's Roundup Settlement Negotiations Hit New 'Speed Bump' -- WSJ
August 28 2020 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Randazzo
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (August 28, 2020).
Bayer AG's $10.9 billion settlement to resolve lawsuits over the
safety of its Roundup weedkiller is stalling, plaintiffs' attorneys
said Thursday in court.
The German chemical and pharmaceutical giant said in June it had
reached deals to settle 75% of the 125,000 cases alleging its
popular weedkiller causes cancer and was working to tie up the
rest. Shareholders welcomed the news after three California juries
returned massive awards against the company in Roundup trials.
Bayer says Roundup is safe and doesn't cause non-Hodgkin
lymphoma.
Deals with some of the lead plaintiffs' lawyers, Aimee Wagstaff
and Jennifer Moore, still haven't been signed by Bayer, the lawyers
told a judge at a Thursday hearing. Another agreement to resolve a
large batch of cases was terminated altogether earlier this month,
plaintiffs' lawyer Brent Wisner said.
The three firms collectively represent around 20,000 plaintiffs,
according to Ms. Wagstaff.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who is overseeing thousands
of the cases filed in federal court, told the lawyers he wanted to
see a plan to restart the litigation in light of the settlement
uncertainty. Ms. Wagstaff said her firm was already working to
schedule trials in Missouri state court.
"I guess I'm having a little bit of trouble squaring what I read
in Bayer's press release in June with the numbers you're giving me
right now," Judge Chhabria said, after hearing that the majority of
cases in his court still didn't have signed settlement deals.
William Hoffman, an attorney for Bayer, said the company thought
at the time of the announcement that it would be able to finalize
the agreements. "I think what we have here is something that occurs
in a lot of negotiations: a speed bump, a slight hiccup, a change
in circumstance that has led one party to put things on hold
temporarily," he said.
"So the cases are not resolved, is what you're saying?" Judge
Chhabria later said.
Settlement agreements have been finalized with lawyers
representing around 30,000 plaintiffs, mediator Kenneth Feinberg
told the court.
Specifics of the disagreements weren't discussed Thursday, but
Judge Chhabria told the plaintiffs' lawyers to publicly file
portions of letters they had sent him in confidence detailing what
the judge described as Bayer "welching" on its deals.
Thursday's hearing was another setback for Bayer. The company is
already working to revamp another component of its June deal: a
$1.25 billion proposal to resolve any Roundup cases filed in the
future. The company is redoing that proposed class action after
Judge Chhabria indicated he was unlikely to approve it.
Judge Chhabria's blessing isn't required to settle the existing
cases, which Bayer said would cost between $8.8 billion and $9.6
billion, but he made clear Thursday he was willing to bring more
cases to trial if needed.
Bayer said Thursday it was optimistic it could finalize the
settlements in the next 30 days without restarting litigation.
Bayer inherited the Roundup litigation when it bought seed and
pesticide maker Monsanto Co. for $63 billion in 2018.
Monsanto first faced scrutiny over Roundup when the product's
key ingredient, glyphosate, was labeled as having the potential to
cause cancer in 2015 by a division of the World Health
Organization. Bayer has argued that glyphosate is safe and approved
for use by regulators including the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, and that it never hid alleged dangers from the public.
Bayer recently lost an appeal in the first Roundup case to go to
trial, though the damages awarded to the plaintiff, groundskeeper
Dewayne Johnson, were greatly reduced to $20.4 million.
Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 28, 2020 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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