US judgement confirmed: Roundup causes cancer

The jury in the Hardemann vs. Monsanto case decided unanimously: The herbicide Roundup from Bayer subsidiary Monsanto is largely responsible for Edwin Hardeman's lymphoma. The pensioner had been using the product since the 1980s to kill weeds on his property.

The case before a US federal court in San Francisco is a "Bellwether Case", which is a model lawsuit that points the way forward for further of such lawsuits. In the case of Judge Vince Chhabria alone, who tried the Hardemann vs. Monsanto case, there are over 760 other lawsuits on the desk. In total, cancer patients or their relatives had filed 11,200 lawsuits against Bayer in the United States by the end of January.

Bayer hopes for second part of trial

Chhabria had split the case in two. First, the jury was asked to answer the question of whether Roundup was significantly responsible for the plaintiff's cancer. The jury agreed unanimously. The second part of the trial will focus on whether Monsanto maliciously disguised the risks and influenced the authorities. Finally, the jury will have to decide how much damages Bayer will have to pay for its subsidiary. In August 2018, Bayer had already lost a case before a California state court and was ordered by the jury to pay 250 million Euros in damages. The judge later reduced the sum to 68 million Euros and Bayer appealed.

The company was disappointed with the current ruling. Bayer is confident that it will be able to prove in the second part of the trial that Monsanto's behavior was appropriate and that the company should not be held liable for Hardeman's cancer. The share price slumped by almost 10% on Wednesday morning.