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Coronavirus Bogs Down Bayer’s Roundup Settlement Talks

April 3, 2020 in In The News

Bayer AG says the new coronavirus is slowing down settlement talks with tens of thousands of plaintiffs who claim its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, the latest evidence that the pandemic is causing delays and disruptions throughout the legal system.

The company recently exercised a right to terminate a draft settlement agreement it had reached with a group of firms and extended the negotiations through April, according to a person familiar with a matter.  The legal maneuver buys Bayer some time to assess the fallout from the global economic collapse caused by virus-related shutdowns.

Click here to read more.

Bayer today provided an update on its five-point plan to address future Roundup™ litigation risk after its May 27th decision to withdraw from the national class process. The company is now in more control of important aspects of the risk mitigation process and has sketched out two basic scenarios going forward to provide a path to closure of this litigation. The first scenario is based on obtaining a favorable decision by the United States Supreme Court on a cross-cutting issue like federal preemption which would effectively and largely end the U.S. Roundup™ litigation. The second scenario assumes that the Supreme Court either declines to hear the Hardeman case or issues a ruling in favor of plaintiff – in that case the company would activate its own claims administration program.

Read about the five-point plan here.