Bayer AG Shares Soar After Winning Roundup Legal Battle

On Thursday 15 August 2024, the German life sciences company announced that the third US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in its favour against the plaintiff, David Schaffner. CNBC reported that a three-judge panel found that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act “demands uniformity of state law labelling requirements, preventing the obligation to add a cancer warning to Roundup in Pennsylvania in this case”.

Schaffner, a landscaper, and his wife brought a case against Bayer acquisition Monsanto in May 2019 after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He claimed that he was exposed to Roundup in a private and professional capacity and cited it as the cause of his cancer. The couple also listed “loss of consortium” – being the impact of an illness on a relationship – as part of their claims.

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Based on Reuters information, Chip Becker, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that they were disappointed with the court decision and will revisit their legal options. Reuters also stated that an estimated 165,000 charges were brought against Roundup in the US.

Approximately 54,000 of these are still open after a settlement deal of $10.9bn in 2020. Bayer commented:

This decision on federal preemption, a cross-cutting issue in this litigation, creates a circuit split among the federal appellate courts and necessitates a review by the U.S. Supreme Court to settle this important issue of law.