(March 24): Bayer AG’s shares dropped after the German conglomerate was ordered by a jury in the US state of Georgia to pay almost US$2.1 billion (RM9.31 billion) to a plaintiff who claimed its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer, the latest setback in litigation that has already cost the company about US$10 billion.

The verdict, reached late on Friday, includes US$65 million in compensatory and US$2 billion in punitive damages, according to an emailed statement from plaintiff law firms Arnold & Itkin LLP and Kline & Specter PC.

Shares of the company fell as much as 8.8% in early Frankfurt trading.

Bayer disagrees with the decision and will appeal it, a spokesman said in an emailed statement on Saturday. The company continues to “stand fully behind the safety of Roundup products” and is in the process of appealing earlier cases, potentially to the US Supreme Court, it said.

Bayer has been fighting Roundup trials in the US since its US$63 billion takeover of farming giant Monsanto Co in 2018. CEO Bill Anderson has pledged to largely contain the litigation by 2026, and the company has spent about US$10 billion of the US$16 billion it’s set aside to resolve the suits.

This month, Bayer said it will seek shareholder authorisation in the spring to raise billions of euros through a capital increase in case it needs to quickly resolve its US legal troubles. The company’s shares have fallen by more than 70% since the Monsanto deal closed, with investors deterred by the legal woes. 

While the company has managed to resolve tens of thousands of individual Roundup suits over the years, there are still about 67,000 pending claims in the US, according to Bayer’s 2024 annual report. Bayer also needs to find a way to prevent new suits from being filed on the matter.

The company said it has prevailed in 17 of the last 25 trials and that it has succeeded in getting such damages reduced by 90% overall compared with original jury awards in cases that have reached final judgment.

But it has lost a handful of cases where juries have awarded billions in damages. Even as Bayer has gotten much of those damages reduced, tens of thousands of new plaintiffs have filed suits against the company.

Uploaded by Arion Yeow