Bayer has recently settled thousands of cases against the company over claims the active ingredient in its popular Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, while adding $1.2 billion to its glyphosate litigation fund, company leaders said Wednesday.
The German pharmaceutical and crop science company, with a large presence in the 51ºÚÁÏ area, now faces about 61,000 unresolved Roundup cases, out of 192,000 total cases brought to date, officials said in quarterly updates. The company recently whittled down the caseload by about 17,000 after a major settlement with a plaintiffs’ law firm.
While Bayer continues to defend against Roundup cases in court — and maintains the safety of its product, pointing to longstanding approvals from global regulatory agencies — it has leaned heavily into legal settlements, especially when cost-effective.
“When it serves company interests and our broader strategy, we will consider settling,†said CEO Bill Anderson, on a call with investors. “More specifically, just recently, we’ve taken thousands of cases off the table through confidential settlements on a low cost-per-case average in the glyphosate litigation.â€
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Bayer’s presence in 51ºÚÁÏ stems from its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto, the agribusiness giant headquartered in Creve Coeur. The $63 billion merger has saddled Bayer with a variety of legal liabilities tied to Monsanto products, from PCBs to dicamba, another weedkiller that has ignited its own controversy and big-dollar court verdicts.
But glyphosate is the Monsanto legacy product that has posed the biggest challenges for Bayer, at least in a financial sense. The company has already spent more than $10 billion on glyphosate-related legal settlements in recent years.
“These decisions are part of our multi-pronged strategy to significantly contain litigation by the end of 2026,†Anderson said. “Simply put, every decision we make has the goal of positioning the company to move past our litigation woes.â€
Anderson said the company continues to examine other avenues to protect itself and that “everything remains on the table.â€
That includes advocating for federal and state legislation that would place some limits on product safety lawsuits over glyphosate, based on the EPA concluding that the chemical is “not likely†to be carcinogenic. Such a bill was introduced in Missouri this year but faltered in the state Legislature.
And Bayer is also hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court might deliver relief next year, pointing to the court’s request for input on glyphosate litigation from the solicitor general.
“We want to resolve this and we’re not sure which combination of factors are going to be involved and what the exact cost of resolving it is,†Anderson said.
The string of litigation and hefty payouts tied to the company’s Monsanto takeover have coincided with sweeping cost-cutting and workforce reductions at Bayer. The company indicated Wednesday that it has so far slashed about 12,000 jobs since launching an internal campaign to thin its ranks, especially in layers of management.
The post-merger economic turmoil has also stoked broader questions about the company’s structure and fueled calls for Bayer to split off its crop science division. Anderson said last year that the company was not currently interested in such a move but that that stance “shouldn’t be misunderstood as never.â€
Bill Anderson, CEO and board chairman of Bayer AG, speaks with reporters on Sept. 13, 2024, at the 51ºÚÁÏ.
In an interview with the Post-Dispatch last September, he said such a shakeup would not be in the cards for at least a couple years.
“We’re going to spend two to three years totally focused on building the company to make it as strong as possible,†said Anderson, during a visit to 51ºÚÁÏ. “And then we’ll come back to those kinds of questions at a later date.â€
Curiosity on the topic hasn’t subsided, as Wednesday’s call featured continued investor questions about what Bayer could look like in the coming years.
Bayer leaders themselves said they didn’t know. But at least one asset won’t be for sale: the Bayer Leverkusen soccer team, which won the championship of Germany’s top professional league, the Bundesliga, in 2024, despite a payroll that was a fraction of those for the league’s top spenders.
“We’re very proud for the club, though we don’t spend any time managing the club,†Anderson said, in response to a question about whether the company plans to keep the team, which was founded as a squad of Bayer employees more than a century ago. “As far as we can see, the club will remain a part of Bayer for the simple reason (that) from a legal standpoint there actually is no way to sell it, and so it’s a permanent fixture.â€
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