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Bayer shares lost a tenth of their value on Wednesday, after the German pharmaceutical and chemical group suffered another setback in its legal battle to prove that glyphosate herbicides do not cause cancer.
A US federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday found that Roundup, one of Bayer's best-selling herbicides, had been a "substantial factor" in the cancer of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman.
The verdict of the jury does not mean that Bayer is obliged to pay damages – an issue that will be settled in the second phase of the trial – but it is a blow to Bayer's court campaign. A defeat in the Hardeman case would be the second decision against the glyphosate against the German group, which faces more than 11,000 similar cases in the United States.
Roundup joined Bayer's portfolio when it acquired the US seed group Monsanto in a $ 63 billion deal last year.
The last setback lowered Bayer's title by 10% to € 62.4 Wednesday morning in Frankfurt. Over the past 12 months, the group's market value has dropped by more than a quarter, mainly due to investors' concerns about the legal risk badociated with glyphosate.
"We are disappointed by the initial jury decision, but we continue to strongly believe that science confirms that glyphosate herbicides do not cause cancer," Bayer said after the verdict. "We are confident in the proofs of phase two [of the trial] will show that Monsanto's conduct was appropriate and that the company should not be held liable for Mr. Hardeman's cancer. "
The Hardeman case is a so-called bellwether case, which means that it is likely to serve as a template for hundreds of similar claims. In the first lawsuit against glyphosate, which was completed last August, a jury sentenced Bayer to pay $ 289 million in damages. The sum was then reduced and the verdict is still on appeal. But this caused a torrent of similar claims across the United States and caused a sharp fall in the price of Bayer shares.
Analysts pointed out that the recent fall in stock prices meant that the markets had already taken into account litigation risks in excess of 20 billion euros. In a note published Wednesday, Peter Verdult of Citi wrote: "If the feeling of the second day of the Roundup trial against Bayer is obvious, we must not forget that the two verdicts were rendered by juries in San Francisco-California. according to our calculation, 22 billion euros of litigation risk are already taken into account in the shares. "
Mr. Verdult argued that an upcoming trial in St. Louis, expected to begin next month, would provide a better test of Bayer's exposure to glyphosate, which he estimated between 1 and 6 billions of dollars.
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