Bayer goes further in the defense of herbicides

Bayer AG reinforces the defense of its flagship killer against weeds, after a verdict in a recent case alleging that the chemical causes of cancer have brought down stocks and raised the prospect of costly payments by plaintiffs.

Bayer said on Tuesday that he wants a California state court judge to overturn the jury's verdict, order a new trial or reduce the damages, according to a court decision. The company aims to defeat a $ 289 million prize in August in one of the first of thousands of petitioners filed by gardeners.

The jury in this case ruled unanimously in favor of a former field guard who tried to hold the Roundup maker responsible for his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The verdict came only two months after the German pharmaceutical and chemical conglomerate sealed its takeover of Monsanto, the US agricultural giant who invented the herbicide.

Bayer shares have fallen about 22% since the verdict to five years. Investors fear that a long legal battle and new damages awards could cost the company billions of dollars. Some wondered whether Bayer's managing director, Werner Baumann, had correctly assessed the risks associated with Monsanto's takeover in a 2016 agreement valued at more than $ 60 billion, the largest ever by a German company.

Bayer now faces 8,700 plaintiffs in the US, up from a few hundred in the spring of 2016. Bayer expects this number to increase.

"Werner Baumann has to wonder if Bayer has taken lightly the lawsuits against Monsanto," said Winfried Mathes, an expert of Bayer's shareholder, Deka Investment. The decline in stock prices has also shaken employees of the German company Leverkusen, according to people familiar with their thinking.

Baumann told investors that Bayer's arguments about science prove that weed safety would prevail. "We support product and science," he said at a conference call in August.

In her case filed with the California State Court on Tuesday, Bayer argued that the plaintiff's lawyers were relying on thin scientific evidence that did not support a connection to cancer and that the plaintiffs' lawyers were very emotional and speculative.

Pedram Esfandiary, a lawyer for Baum Hedlund Aristei and Goldman PC, who represents the plaintiff in this case, said that the jury's verdict showed that Monsanto's scientific case was not convincing. "I think the probabilities are very slim," he said.

Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos is expected to rule on Bayer's applications by the end of October or early November.

Bayer began negotiations with Monsanto in 2016, aware of Roundup's problems, said people familiar with the negotiations. However, Bayer said the amount of information that Monsanto could share before the antitrust authorities have yet to be authorized.

Representatives of the competition authority of the European Union and the US Department of Justice have not had immediate comment.

Amer Bayer has learned that dozens of internal emails from Monsanto are discussing glyphosate security and strategies for publicly defending it in US court proceedings. These e-mails include what plaintiffs' lawyers say is evidence of Monsanto's ghostwriting articles to outside scientists to defend the safety of chemicals.

After taking control of Monsanto this summer, Bayer has found no "firearms" in Monsanto's internal communications, Baumann told investors last month. Lawyers representing cancer victims used these "out of context" internal communications. Monsanto scientists and the authors of the article have denied the text-writing allegations, Bayer said.

The agreement has made Bayer the world's largest supplier of pesticides and seeds for farmers, who now generate nearly half of the group's sales. Profit margins for Roundup, its best-selling phytopharmaceutical product, are slim, but most of the nearly $ 11 billion worth of seeds Monsanto sells each year is genetically engineered to resist glyphosate, Roundup's potent harmful chemical.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as likely to cause cancer. Monsanto responded, highlighting studies by academics and agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency that showed no risk of cancer.

Legal academics have said that successful challenges to jury verdicts are not uncommon. Last October, another California state judge quashed a $ 417 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson after a woman alleged that the company's baby powder had contributed to the development of her ovarian cancer.

In January, a Pennsylvania court judge overturned the jury's verdict and $ 28 million in damages to Bayer. Johnson & Johnson had not warned about the internal bleeding risks of Xarelto.

"For Bayer, the most important is that a judge says that science does not hold water," said Alexandra Lahav, a law professor at the University of Connecticut.

Bayer has sometimes settled product lawsuits. In 2005, Bayer paid $ 1.15 billion to settle some 3,000 death and injury claims for its withdrawn cholesterol drug Baycol.

The company also spent more than $ 2 billion on thousands of cases, saying it did not adequately inform women about the risk of thrombosis and other side effects of its contraceptive-based pills. ################################################################################## Yaz, Yasmin and Yasminelle hormones.

Write to Jacob Bunge at [email protected] and Ruth Bender at [email protected]