Bayer loses appeal of ruling that its weed killer causes cancer

A US appeals court refused to overturn 2019 verdict which ruled in favour of a couple who fell ill after Roundup’s long use.

Bayer AG’s Roundup woes deepened as it lost another appeal of a jury verdict finding its weed killer causes cancer, the company’s third consecutive appeals court loss of the cases that have gone to trial. A California appeals court in San Francisco refused to overturn the 2019 verdict in which a jury awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed they fell ill after using the herbicide for more than three decades. It was the eighth-largest product-defect award in U.S. history. The appeals court left intact the trial judge’s decision to reduce the award to $86.7 million. The decision comes after Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer recently set aside an additional $4.5 billion to deal with thousands of Roundup suits, bringing its reserves for the cases to more than $16 billion. The company also said its Monsanto unit will pull the current version of Roundup off the U.S. consumer lawn and garden market in 2023.