Emails Reveal: U.S. Officials Sided With Agrochemical Giant Bayer to Overturn Mexico's Glyphosate Ban
By Kenny Stancil
While Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given farmers in the country a 2024 deadline to stop using glyphosate, The Guardian reported Tuesday that agrochemical company Bayer, industry lobbyist CropLife America, and U.S. officials have been pressuring Mexico's government to drop its proposed ban on the carcinogenic pesticide.
The corporate and U.S.-backed attempt to coerce Mexico into maintaining its glyphosate imports past 2024 has unfolded, as journalist Carey Gillam detailed in the newspaper, "over the last 18 months, a period in which Bayer was negotiating an $11 billion settlement of legal claims brought by people in the U.S. who say they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma due to exposure" to glyphosate-based products, such as Roundup.
Roundup, one of the world's mostly widely-used herbicides, was created by Monsanto which was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
According to The Guardian, which obtained internal documents via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), "The pressure on Mexico is similar to actions Bayer and chemical industry lobbyists took to kill a glyphosate ban planned by Thailand in 2019. Thailand officials had also cited concerns for public health in seeking to ban the weed killer, but reversed course after U.S. threats about trade disruption."
In addition to instructing Mexico's farmers to stop using glyphosate by 2024, the López Obrador administration on Dec. 31, 2020 issued a "final decree" calling for "a phase-out of the planting and consumption of genetically engineered corn, which farmers often spray with glyphosate, a practice that often leaves residues of the pesticide in finished food products," the news outlet noted.
The Mexican government has characterized the restrictions as an effort to improve the nation's "food security and sovereignty" and to protect its wealth of biological as well as cultural diversity and farming communities.
Mexico's promotion of human and environmental health, however, "has triggered fear in the United States for the health of agricultural exports, especially Bayer's glyphosate products," Gillam wrote.
But Mexico’s concern for the health of its citizens has triggered fear in the United States for the health of agric… https://t.co/d81tuhqYcl— carey gillam (@carey gillam)1613482743.0
Based on its analysis of government emails from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other U.S. agencies from 2019 and 2020, The Guardian explained how the U.S., frustrated by the positions that Mexico has taken, is trying to use the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — the Trump-led free trade deal that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) dubbed NAFTA 2.0 — to force Mexico to abandon its plans to ban glyphosate and phase out GMO corn.
According to The Guardian, Mexico each year imports roughly $3 billion in corn from the U.S., where 90% of corn production relies on GMO seeds.
As the newspaper reported:
One email makes a reference to staff within López Obrador's administration as "vocal anti-biotechnology activists," and another email states that Mexico's health agency (COFEPRIS) is "becoming a big time problem."
Internal USTR communications lay out how the agrochemical industry is "pushing" for the US to "fold this issue" into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that went into effect 1 July. The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns "regarding compliance" with USMCA.
Citing discussions with CropLife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email "how we could use USMCA to work through these issues."
Nathan Donley, a biologist at CBD, told The Guardian that "we're seeing more and more how the pesticide industry uses the U.S. government to aggressively push its agenda on the international stage and quash any attempt by people in other countries to take control of their food supply."
Corporate executives in the agrochemical industry reportedly became alarmed about the López Obrador administration's position on pesticides in late 2019 when Mexican officials explained their decision to refuse imports of glyphosate from China by referring to the "precautionary principle."
Detailing a series of emails between U.S. government officials and industry executives, Gillam described how the latter told the former "that they feared restricting glyphosate would lead to limits on other pesticides and could set a precedent for other countries to do the same."
The emails also indicated worries that "Mexico may also reduce the levels of pesticide residues allowed in food," a development that industry executives warned would undermine U.S. exports of corn and soybeans to Mexico.
As Gillam wrote, CropLife president Chris Novak told U.S. officials that "'if Mexico extends the precautionary principle' to pesticide residue levels in food, '$20 billion in U.S. annual agricultural exports to Mexico will be jeopardized.'"
According to The Guardian, "It is unclear if the efforts to push Mexico to change its policy position are still underway within the new Biden administration."
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a progressive think tank working to build fair and sustainable food, farm, and trade systems, tweeted Tuesday that the USTR has a choice.
"Will they continue the pattern of doing the bidding of global biotech/seed firms like Monsanto?" asked IATP. "Or, will the USTR respect other countries' rights to protect the environment and indigenous crops? Will they recalibrate U.S. trade policy to be more transparent?"
IATP, for its part, has recommended that Katherine Tai, President Joe Biden's pick to lead the USTR office, "break with the corporate free trade model" supported by previous administrations from both major parties.
Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
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Bayer's $10 billion settlement to put an end to roughly 125,000 lawsuits against its popular weed killer Roundup, which contains glyphosate, hit a snag this week when a federal judge in San Francisco expressed skepticism over what rights future plaintiffs would have, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The $10 billion settlement does not actually need judicial review and is set to move forward. The issue is that $1.25 billion from the settlement does need a court order to be approved. That part deals with future lawsuits by cancer patients who have not yet gone to court and by others who have not yet been diagnosed. The U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said in an order Monday that he had questions about the legality and fairness of the agreement and was "tentatively inclined" to reject it, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
In a court filing on Monday, the judge described a plan to create a class action for future litigants as problematic, and he set a July 24 hearing date to address the matter, as Bloomberg reported.
"We appreciate the judge's order raising his preliminary concerns with the proposed class settlement, which we take seriously and will address" at the hearing, Chris Loder, a U.S.-based spokesman for the Germany-based chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer, said in an interview.
Chhabria said he "is skeptical of the propriety and fairness of the proposed settlement." He raised concerns about the creation of a scientific panel to decide whether the key ingredient, glyphosate, causes cancer and whether the agreement unfairly limits potential plaintiffs from suing, according to The New York Times.
Right now about 30,000 claims contending Roundup caused non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are left unsettled. Some lawyers in the U.S. have vowed to file another wave of new suits that could add tens of thousands to the logjam of existing cases, according to Bloomberg.
"Thankfully, Judge Chhabria has seen the ruthless plan as an outrageous attempt to deprive every future victim of Monsanto's killer Roundup of their right to fair and full compensation and to a jury trial," Tom Kline and Jason Itkin, plaintiffs' attorneys for users of the weedkiller who haven't settled their suits, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Bayer has lost a series of high-profile multi-million dollar cases for Roundup's role in causing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in people who used the Monsanto brand herbicide. That series of losses has seen investors flee from Bayer since it acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018.
To stem the tide of suits, Bayer insisted that the protection against future suits is a linchpin of the current settlement. Without it, the bulk of the $10 billion deal has the potential to fall apart, according to The New York Times.
In addition to the $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to cover about 95,000 cases, $1.25 billion was set aside to finance the scientific panel and assist impoverished Roundup users with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. As The New York Times described, that panel would then decide whether glyphosate caused cancer and, if so, what exposure level was dangerous. Both Bayer and claimants would be bound to accept the findings in future litigation.
New York-based lawyer Hunter Shkolnik opposed the novel class-action idea from the onset. He described it as "nothing more than a legally infirm, backroom deal to protect Monsanto rather than compensating Roundup cancer victims," in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.
Judge Chhabria asked on Monday whether it was lawful to remove judges and juries from the equation and to shift the question of whether Roundup caused cancer to a panel of scientists.
According to The New York Times, he also noted the three previous multimillion-dollar verdicts and asked, "Why would a potential class member want to replace a jury trial and the right to seek punitive damages with the process contemplated by the settlement agreement?"
Furthermore, Chhabria also worried that the science on glyphosate's cancer-causing properties is still evolving. That led him to question whether it would pass legal muster to have claimants bound by one study that didn't find toxicity when a future, more rigorous study may find the opposite, as Bloomberg reported.
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Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.
The bright patterns and recognizable designs of Waterlust's activewear aren't just for show. In fact, they're meant to promote the conversation around sustainability and give back to the ocean science and conservation community.
Each design is paired with a research lab, nonprofit, or education organization that has high intellectual merit and the potential to move the needle in its respective field. For each product sold, Waterlust donates 10% of profits to these conservation partners.
Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
waterlust.com / @abamabam
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
waterlust.com / @oceanraysphotography
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
In one of the largest civil settlements in U.S. history, Bayer agreed Wednesday to pay more than $10 billion to resolve around 95,000 cases claiming its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.
The deal will still allow Bayer to sell Roundup without adding any warnings, The New York Times reported. It comes after three juries in early, high-profile trials awarded more than $2.4 billion to plaintiffs who developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after long term Roundup use.
"Even Bayer's billions can't magically make glyphosate's well-documented links to cancer disappear," Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) senior scientist Nathan Donley said in a statement reported by The Guardian. "Bayer only settled after three multi-million-dollar verdicts over the past year from jurors who, unlike the EPA, wisely put more trust in the safety assessments of independent scientists than in Monsanto/Bayer's confidential reviews of its own product."
Even as they settle, @Bayer officials continue to deny Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicides cause cancer. “The extensive body of science indicates that Roundup does not cause cancer, and therefore, is not responsible for the illnesses alleged...”https://t.co/45xQPai62f
— carey gillam (@careygillam) June 24, 2020
The debate over Roundup's safety is ongoing, The New York Times explained. In 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer said that glyphosate could "probably" cause cancer, but other regulatory bodies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have ruled it safe. However, critics point out that many of these safe rulings were based on studies provided by Monsanto, the company that developed and sold Roundup before it was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
Per the terms of the settlement, the question of Roundup's safety will now pass to an independent "Class Science Panel," U.S. Right to Know (USTK) reported. The panel will decide if Roundup use can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and at what levels of exposure. Both Bayer and any future plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit will be bound by its findings. Until those findings are released, a process likely to take years, plaintiffs cannot bring any claims or seek punitive damages.
In the deal, Bayer earmarked $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to settle 75 percent of current cases and $1.25 billion for any future claims. The three cases already decided by juries, currently in appeal, are not included.
Both plaintiff lawyers and Bayer celebrated the agreement.
"After years of hard fought litigation and a year of intense mediation I am glad to see our clients will now be compensated," Mike Miller of the Miller law firm told USRTK.
Bayer, meanwhile, seemed eager to escape the shadow cast on the company after it acquired both Monsanto and its legal challenges. Bayer's stock price plummeted after the three juries ruled against it, The New York Times pointed out.
"First and foremost, the Roundup™ settlement is the right action at the right time for Bayer to bring a long period of uncertainty to an end," Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said in a statement.
Bayer has reached a series of agreements to resolve major legacy Monsanto litigation in the U.S.
— Bayer AG (@Bayer) June 24, 2020
Learn more: https://t.co/crqNTLIkVd
However, not all the plaintiffs bringing claims against Bayer agreed to the settlement. The company still faces at least 30,000 claims, according to The New York Times.
"This is nothing like the closure they're trying to imply," Fletch Trammell, a Houston-based lawyer who represents 5,000 of the people bringing those claims, told The New York Times. "It's like putting out part of a house fire."
Also on Wednesday, Bayer settled two other lawsuits inherited from Monsanto, The Guardian reported. First, it will pay $400 million to settle claims related to dicamba, another herbicide that can drift to other crops and kill them.
"The settlement announced today is an important step to making things right for the farmers who just want to be able to put food on the table of America and the world," lawyer Joseph Peiffer of Peiffer Wolf law firm, which represents farmers with dicamba claims, told USRTK of the second herbicide settlement.
Bayer will pay a further $820 million to settle "most" claims related to PCB, a toxic chemical that Monsanto produced until 1977 that contaminated U.S. water supplies, The Guardian reported.
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A federal court overturned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) approval of dicamba Wednesday, meaning the controversial herbicide can no longer be sprayed in the U.S.
The product, originally designed by Monsanto, is opposed by some farmers and environmental groups because it can drift when sprayed, damaging wildlife and other crops.
"Today's decision is a massive win for farmers and the environment. It is good to be reminded that corporations like Monsanto and the Trump Administration cannot escape the rule of law, particularly at a time of crisis like this," lead counsel George Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety told U.S. Right to Know. "Their day of reckoning has arrived."
The Center for Food Safety sued the EPA together with National Family Farm Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America. The groups argued that the EPA broke the law when it ruled on the safety of a kind of dicamba designed by Monsanto to be sprayed widely over crops genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide. This method means the dicamba can drift to other, non-resistant crops.
The herbicide is believed to have damaged 3.6 million acres of soybeans in 2017, and more than 1 million in 2018, Bloomberg News reported.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the EPA "substantially understated the risks" of the herbicides and also "failed entirely to acknowledge other risks," according to U.S. Right to Know.
The court found @EPA refused to estimate the amount of dicamba damage, characterizing such damage as “potential” an… https://t.co/ev2bah3opD— carey gillam (@carey gillam)1591228144.0
One of the risks the EPA failed to acknowledge was the "enormous social cost to farming communities" where the herbicide's use "has turned farmer against farmer, and neighbor against neighbor," the court wrote, according to Bloomberg. A farmer was shot and killed because of a dicamba-related argument in Arkansas in 2016.
The ruling impacts the dicamba-based herbicide sold by Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018. It also prohibits the use of BASF's Engenia and Corteva Agriscience's FeXapan, Reuters reported.
Bayer told Reuters that the ruling impacted a 2018 EPA approval that expires in December and that it is currently at work on a new 2021 approval.
"Depending upon actions by the EPA and whether the ruling is successfully challenged, we will work quickly to minimize any impact on our customers this season," Bayer said.
The ruling comes around four months after a jury ruled against Bayer and BASF and in favor of a Missouri farmer who said the companies' dicamba products destroyed his peach orchard, according to Bloomberg.
That was the first of around 140 pending dicamba suits awaiting trial.
The dicamba suits are not the only suits Bayer inherited when it acquired Monsanto, Reuters pointed out. Wednesday's dicamba decision came days after arguments were heard in an appeal of the first case to go to trial over whether or not the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.
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Bayer Said to Be Reneging on Roundup Settlement Deals as Virus Closes Courthouses
By Carey Gillam
Bayer AG is reneging on negotiated settlements with several U.S. law firms representing thousands of plaintiffs who claim exposure to Monsanto's Roundup herbicides caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sources involved in the litigation said on Friday.
The reversal comes as U.S. courts are closed to the public because of the spreading coronavirus, eliminating the specter of another Roundup cancer trial in the near future.
Bayer, which bought Monsanto in June of 2018, has been engaged in settlement talks for close to a year, seeking to put an end to mass litigation that has driven down the company's stock, spurred investor unrest, and thrust questionable corporate conduct into a public spotlight. The first three trials led to three losses for Bayer and jury awards of more than $2 billion, though trial judges later reduced the awards.
Bayer made a public statement this week saying that settlement talks have been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, but multiple plaintiffs' lawyers said that was not true.
According to the plaintiffs' attorneys, Bayer has been going back to law firms that had already completed negotiations for specified settlements for their clients, saying the company will not honor the agreed-upon amounts.
"A lot of lawyers around the country thought they had tentative deals," said Virginia attorney Mike Miller, whose firm represents roughly 6,000 clients and won two of the three Roundup trials to date. Bayer is now demanding a "hair cut" on those deals, Miller said.
Whether or not the various firms will take the reduced offers remains to be seen. "These are uncertain economic times," Miller said. "People have to consider what's best for their clients."
In response to a request for comment, a Bayer spokesman provided the following statement: "We've made progress in the Roundup mediation discussions, but the COVID-19 dynamics, including restrictions imposed in recent weeks, have caused meeting cancellations and delayed this process … As a result, the mediation process has significantly slowed, and realistically, we expect this will continue to be the case for the immediate future. During this time, we will continue to do whatever we can to help combat the global COVID-19 pandemic, consistent with our vision of 'health for all, hunger for none.' We cannot speculate about potential outcomes from the negotiations or timing, given the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and the confidentiality of this process, but we remain committed to engaging in mediation in good faith."US Right to Know reported in early January that the parties were working on a settlement of roughly $8 billion to $10 billion. Bayer has acknowledged facing claims from more than 40,000 plaintiffs, but plaintiffs' attorneys have said the total number of claims is much higher.
Among the firms who had negotiated settlements for their clients are the Andrus Wagstaff firm from Denver, Colorado and the Los Angeles firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman. Both reached agreements last year with Bayer.
In addition, the Weitz & Luxenberg firm from New York and Mike Miller's firm recently reached what they thought were agreements on terms. Each of the firms represents thousands of plaintiffs.
The primary leverage plaintiffs' attorneys had been using in the settlement negotiations was the threat of another public trial. In the first three trials, damning internal Monsanto documents laid bare evidence that the company knew of the cancer risks of its glyphosate-based herbicides but failed to warn consumers; ghost-wrote scientific papers proclaiming the safety of its herbicides; worked with certain regulatory officials to quash a government review of glyphosate toxicity; and engineered efforts to discredit critics.
The revelations have triggered outrage around the world and prompted moves to ban the glyphosate-based herbicides.
Several trials that were to have been held over the last several months were cancelled shortly before they were scheduled to begin when Bayer agreed to individual settlements for those specific trial plaintiffs. Two of those cases involved children stricken with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and a third was brought by a woman suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Those plaintiffs, and others who have agreed to settlements in lieu of trials in recent months, are protected and are not part of the current rollback effort by Bayer, according to multiple sources involved.
Bayer is slated to hold its annual shareholders' meeting on April 28. For the first time in the company's history, the meeting will be held entirely online.
The first three plaintiffs to win jury awards against Monsanto have yet to receive any money as Bayer appeals the verdicts.
By Carey Gillam
A California shareholder of Bayer AG on Friday filed a lawsuit against the companies' top executives claiming they breached their duty of "prudence" and "loyalty" to the company and investors by buying Monsanto Co. in 2018, an acquisition the suit claims has "inflicted billions of dollars of damages" on the company.
Plaintiff Rebecca R. Haussmann, trustee of the Konstantin S. Haussmann Trust, is the sole named plaintiff in the suit, which was filed in New York County Supreme Court. The named defendants include Bayer CEO Werner Baumann, who orchestrated the $63 billion Monsanto purchase, and Bayer Chairman Werner Wenning, who announced last month he was stepping down from the company earlier than planned. The suit claims that Wenning's decision came after Bayer improperly obtained a copy of the then-draft shareholder lawsuit "through corporate espionage."
The lawsuit also claims that Bayer's recent announcement of an audit of its acquisition actions is "bogus" and "part of the ongoing cover-up and intended to create a legal barrier to this case to protect Defendants from their accountability…"
The action is a shareholder derivative complaint, meaning it is brought on behalf of the company against company insiders. It seeks compensatory damages for shareholders and disgorgement of "all compensation paid to the Bayer Managers and Supervisors who participated in bringing about this Acquisition…" The suit also seeks return of funds paid to banks and law firms involved in the acquisition.
The defendants include not only Baumann and Wenning, but also some present and former Bayer directors and top managers, as well as BOFA Securities, Inc., Bank of America, Credit Suisse Group AG and the law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Linklaters LLP.
A Bayer spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit comes a little more than a month before Bayer's April 28 annual shareholders' meeting in Bonn, Germany. At last year's annual meeting, 55 percent of shareholders registered their unhappiness with Baumann and other managers over the Monsanto deal and the subsequent loss of roughly $40 billion in market value.
Bayer's purchase of Monsanto has been clouded by tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicides cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that the company deceived customers about the risks. Bayer proceeded with the acquisition even after the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015 classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen with a positive association to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and despite knowledge of the spreading legal claims.
Bayer then completed the Monsanto purchase just two months before the first Roundup cancer trial ended with a $289 million verdict against the company. Since that time two more trials have ended in similar findings against the company with verdicts totaling more than $2 billion, though the trial judges in each case have lowered the verdicts. All are now on appeal.
Bayer has said there are more than 45,000 plaintiffs currently making similar claims. The company has been working to settle the lawsuits for a figure widely reported to be around $10 billion but has thus far not been successful in putting an end to the litigation.
The lawsuit claims that during 2017 and 2018, as the filing of new Roundup cancer lawsuits was escalating, the ability of Bayer management to conduct due diligence into Monsanto and the litigation risks was "severely restricted." As a result, "Bayer could not conduct the kind of intrusive and thorough due diligence into Monsanto's business and legal affairs called for under the circumstances."
The suit claims that Monsanto did not disclose a material risk from Roundup and failed to quantify any potential financial impact. Monsanto's executives "had every incentive to minimize the Roundup risk in order to get Bayer to close the deal," the lawsuit states.
The shareholder lawsuit claims that "these types of mass-tort cases… can destroy a company."
The lawsuit points to the fact that Monsanto's glyphosate herbicides are now being restricted and/or banned in many parts of the world, including in Germany.
"The Monsanto Acquisition is a disaster. Roundup is doomed as a commercial product," the lawsuit states.
Reposted with permission from U.S. Right to Know.
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- Bayer and BASF Ordered to Pay $265 Million to U.S. Peach Farmer ... ›
Bayer and BASF Ordered to Pay $265 Million to U.S. Peach Farmer in Weedkiller Suit
A jury in Missouri awarded a farmer $265 million in a lawsuit that claimed Bayer and BASF's weedkiller destroyed his peach orchard, as Reuters reported.
The lawsuit is ominous for Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018 and now faces nearly 140 similar lawsuits in U.S. courts, plus thousands of other suits that claim health damage from Monsanto's glyphosate-based Roundup.
The jury in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri awarded peach farmer, Bill Bader, $15 million in actual damages and $250 million in punitive damages, after agreeing with his claim that a herbicide the two German companies produced drifted onto his orchard from nearby farms and irreparably damaged his 1,000 acre peach-tree orchard, according to Reuters.
Bader Farms is one of the largest peach tree farms in Missouri.
As the AP reported, Bader's attorneys argued that dicamba, which is present in herbicides made by Bayer and BASF, is so potent that there was no way for Bader's trees to recover from the exposure. The generous award paves the way for a large spate of lawsuits from farmers who have seen their crops destroyed by inadvertent exposure to dicamba-based products.
Like Roundup, dicamba was developed and distributed by Monsanto. Farmers across the country have claimed that dicamba turns into vapor and drifts for miles when used in certain weather conditions, as Reuters reported. They have alleged that it has destroyed millions of acres of U.S. cropland, according to The Associated Press.
Attorneys for Bayer said they plan to appeal the decision. "We want our customers to know that, as this legal matter continues, we remain steadfast in our commitment to delivering them the effective and sustainable tools they need in the field," Bayer said in a statement, as The Associated Press reported. In court, they argued that Bader Farms trees were damaged by root fungus and bad weather.
The lawyers also claimed that the decision was not based on facts, saying "there was no competent evidence presented which showed that Monsanto's products were present" on the Missouri farm and were responsible for the farmer's losses, according to Bloomberg.
The loss in this trial, which surely opens the door for many more lawsuits, heaps an enormous amount of pressure on Bayer Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann, who staked his career on the $63 billion takeover of Monsanto. He became the first CEO of a major German company in decades to lose a shareholder confidence vote last spring, as Bloomberg reported.
Dicamba is not a new product. Farmers have been using it for nearly half a century. However, Monsanto developed a dicamba-resistant strain of cotton and soybeans. That opened the door for widespread use of dicamba, which led to complaints from neighboring farms who claimed that their crops were getting killed by the dicamba drift, as The Associated Press reported.
In response to those concerns, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created tighter restrictions on dicamba usage. Some states have taken additional steps, requiring training and putting in place firm dates dictating when dicamba can and cannot be sprayed, according to The Associated Press.
The legal cases from Monsanto continue to pile up for Bayer. Not only are Roundup and dicamba suits in the pipeline, the company also faces litigation from several cities that claim Monsanto dumped toxic PCBs into waterways, as Bloomberg reported.
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'Troubling Allegiance' to Pesticide Company: Trump's EPA Claims Glyphosate Poses No Risk to Human Health
By Eoin Higgins
President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday wrapped up a regulatory review of the safety of the weedkiller glyphosate and found the chemical poses no risk to human health — a decision that was immediately decried by advocates as another indication of the closeness between the administration and private sector interests.
"The Trump EPA's assertion that glyphosate poses no risks to human health disregards independent science findings in favor of confidential industry research and industry profits," said Lori Ann Burd, the Center for Biological Diversity's director of environmental health. "This administration's troubling allegiance to Bayer/Monsanto and the pesticide industry doesn't change the trove of peer-reviewed research by leading scientists finding troubling links between glyphosate and cancer."
The EPA came to the conclusion after reviewing the chemical's effects on humans, but the determination is unlikely to change views on either side of the conflict over the chemical's safety.
"A whole lot of people will disagree" with the EPA, tweeted Civil Eats founder and editor Naomi Starkman.
As Reuters reported:
The conclusion reaffirms the agency's stance on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Bayer AG's Roundup, despite judgments by U.S. juries that have found that use of the weedkiller was responsible for plaintiffs' cancer in some trials.
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In 2015, the World Health Organization's cancer arm classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
There are reportedly tens of thousands of lawsuits against Bayer/Monsanto for the chemical's cancer links, and the company is considering settling the claims for between $10 and $12 billion.
Thursday's decision is not expected to have an effect on those suits. But the message the EPA is sending, the Center for Biological Diversity's Burd said, is clear.
"The EPA's pesticide office is clearly willing to bend over backwards, including disregarding its own guidelines for evaluating cancer risks, to give the industry what it wants," said Burd.
As Common Dreams has reported, Trump's EPA has been criticized by advocates for years for its closeness to Bayer/AG and its treatment of glyphosate.
Media strategist Jen Degtjarewsky gave a blunt assessment on the president's environmental record in the context of Thursday's ruling.
"It's open season on clean air, water, and soil," said Degtjarewsky.
Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
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2020 Dems Called on to Follow Warren in Supporting 'No Big AG Money Pledge'
Food system justice and environmental advocates on Wednesday urged all Democratic presidential hopefuls to follow in the footsteps of Sen. Elizabeth Warren in signing a pledge rejecting campaign cash from food and agribusiness corporations.
The Massachusetts senator, said advocacy group Friends of the Earth, is "leading the way."
BREAKING: Elizabeth Warren has signed our #NoBigAgMoney pledge! 77% of Iowa Democratic caucus goers want candidate… https://t.co/A0VudN01tO— Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)1579706562.0
"We applaud Sen. Warren for listening to voters that overwhelmingly support candidates rejecting Big Ag's money and influence," said Lisa Archer, food and agriculture director for Friends of the Earth Action. "We urge all presidential candidates to take the No Big Ag Money pledge and prioritize our families, farmers, food chain workers, our planet, and our democracy over Big Ag's profits."
The "No Big Ag Money Pledge" was launched last week. It states (pdf):
I pledge not to take contributions over $200 from large food and agribusiness corporation executives, lobbyists, and PACs and instead prioritize the health of our families, farmers, food chain workers, our planet, and our democracy.
The document lists dozens of companies that fall under that category, including giants Bayer, Caterpillar, Tyson, General Mils, and Sodexo. Rejecting cash from those entities, says the coalition behind the pledge, would show that presidential candidates won't favor the interests of factory farms over those of family farms.
If the opinion of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa serve as a guide, candidates would be wise to sign on to the plege.
According to a poll (pdf) out earlier this month — commissioned to the Friends of the Earth Action and conducted by Lake Research Partners — 77 percent of these likely caucus-goers agree that presidential candidates should reject campaign contributions from Big Ag. Sixty-four percent also said they support breaking up the biggest food and agriculture corporations — a proposal backed by Warren and Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Make no mistake, Big Ag wields significant power. As Friends of the Earth outlined in a statement last week,
Currently in the United States, four corporations (many of them foreign owned) control 84 percent of the market for beef, 70 percent of the market for soy, 66 percent of the market for hogs, 80 percent of the market for corn, 59 percent of the market for poultry, 84 percent of the market for pesticides, and 60 percent of the market for seeds.
The food and family farms groups say that campaigns not accepting contributions from these interests would be a step towards neutering their political influence.
"It would be great to see all the candidates join Elizabeth Warren in taking the No Big Ag Money Pledge," said Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of Citizens Regeneration Lobby. "It's time to stop agribusiness monopolies from using campaign cash and lobbying dollars to put a stranglehold on federal food and farm policy."
Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added its weight to back Bayer AG in its appeal against a federal jury verdict that decided its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, according to Bloomberg.
Bayer is looking to overturn a verdict that first awarded a plaintiff $80 million, but was reduced to $25 million by a federal judge, in a suit that claimed the world's most popular herbicide caused a man's non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The EPA, working with the U.S. Department of Justice, filed papers in court on Friday fully and unequivocally supporting Bayer's claim that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, does not cause cancer, as The Wall Street Journal reported.
When the U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria cut the jury reward in the spring, he refused to overturn the jury's findings that Roundup should have been sold with a cancer warning on the label. The EPA, however, said in papers that it had vetted and approved the Roundup warning label issued by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018 for about $63 billion, and it did not require a cancer warning, as Bloomberg reported.
The filings by the EPA and Justice Department said that Monsanto, and subsequently Bayer, could not print a cancer-risk warning on its label because the EPA has the sole authority over warning labels on chemical products and the EPA would not have approved a cancer warning on Roundup labels, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"That label, once reviewed and approved by EPA, is controlling," the agency said, as Bloomberg reported. "States cannot impose distinct labeling requirements."
In August, the EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said his agency would not allow a cancer-risk warning on glyphosate-based herbicides, saying it was tantamount to false labeling since the EPA had deemed it safe, as The Wall Street Journal reported.
"EPA has a longstanding position—It's not just this administration which determined that this pesticide does not cause cancer," said Jeffrey Clark, the assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Justice Department in an interview, to The Wall Street Journal. "EPA should be in control. Congress set it up that way."
In its appeal, Bayer alleged that Chhabria made several errors and that the plaintiff's claims are preempted by federal law. Bayer claims that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, it actually would have been misbranding to print a cancer-risk warning on a glyphosate-based product, according to IEG Policy Agribusiness.
Bayer is facing a mountain of litigation as there were 42,700 others suing the company over Roundup as of October, according to Bloomberg. So far, Bayer has lost three U.S. court cases where plaintiffs have claimed that long-term exposure to Roundup had caused their cancer. The company has postponed two trials in the U.S. while it works with a mediator to try to hammer out a settlement with the plaintiffs, as Bloomberg reported.
Legal scholars told The Wall Street Journal that the filing by the EPA and the Justice Department will stand out to the appeals court, and the federal government will often add its opinion when a case is based on the interpretation of a federal statute.
Bayer said in a statement to Bloomberg that it's pleased the EPA "expressed its views in this appeal, which are consistent with the preemption arguments we have made throughout this case."
Aimee Wagstaff, the lawyer for Edwin Hardeman, the plaintiff, emailed a statement to Bloomberg that said the EPA's filing reflected a desperation move by Bayer that has been rejected by several state and federal judges. "The EPA's brief doesn't change the law," she wrote.
"We are confident the Ninth Circuit will also reject Monsanto's argument and rule in favor of Mr. Hardeman," she added, as The Wall Street Journal reported.
The appeals court judges "may not ultimately agree with the side the government is supporting for other reasons," said Ben Feuer, an appellate lawyer in San Francisco, as The Wall Street Journal reported, but the agency's brief "is going to be closely parsed and they will engage with it."
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Use of glyphosate will be banned in Germany from the end of 2023, after a phased effort to reduce its application by farmers.
The ban, agreed by the Cabinet on Wednesday, is part of an insect conservation program from Environment Minister Svenja Schulze.
It includes a "systematic reduction strategy," which would initially prohibit use of the chemical in domestic gardens and allotments, and on the edge of farmers' fields.
Germany's move comes after lawmakers in Austria passed a bill banning all use of the weedkiller, making the country the first to do so. Some 20 French mayors banned it from their municipalities last month — in defiance of their national government.
Glyphosate — also the subject of legal claims over an alleged link with cancer — was developed by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup.
The chemical is now out of patent and is marketed worldwide by dozens of other chemical groups. They include Dow Agrosciences and Germany's BASF.
Worries about the chemical's safety came to light when a World Health Organization agency report concluded in 2015 that it probably causes cancer.
W.H.O. Report Links Ingredient in Roundup to Cancer http://t.co/vWQD131ijE— NYT Science (@NYT Science)1426904171.0
The German chemical giant Bayer — which acquired Monsanto last year in a mammoth $62.5 billion deal — says studies and regulators have deemed glyphosate and Roundup safe for human use.
However, some 18,000 people have brought legal action against the firm since the takeover. They claim that the use of glyphosate has caused them to develop various types of cancer. What do EU countries think?
The chemical has also been linked with a decline in pollinating insect species like bees and butterflies.
Views over glyphosate use in the EU and how to proceed are divided by country, as well as by branch of the bloc.
In October 2017 the European Parliament approved a nonbinding resolution to ban the chemical's use by 2022.
However, the law-making executive branch of the EU, the Commission, voted a few months later to extend the glyphosate license for another five years, though the vote revealed divisions in the bloc.
France voted against the 2017 extension, and President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for phasing out glyphosate in the coming years. Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Malta also voted against the extension.
Germany supported the extension, though roughly one year later the country introduced stricter national regulations for pesticides. The Czech Republic has also announced it will limit its use.
Way to go, Germany! 🙌 The country said it will ban #glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's #Roundup weedkille… https://t.co/uojwdhy9ar— Organic Consumers (@Organic Consumers)1567604926.0
Reposted with permission from our media associate DW.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria announced his ruling in San Francisco on Monday.
Chhabria reduced the amount that Germany's Bayer AG has to pay the claimant to $25.27 million (€22.4 million). Bayer bought Roundup maker Monsanto for $63 billion last year.
Following a four-week trial in March a federal jury awarded $5 million (€4.4 million) in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages to a man who blamed his cancer on glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup.
Edwin Hardeman was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014.
Limits on Ratios for Damages
At a hearing to discuss Bayer's request to overturn the verdict earlier this month, Chhabria said, "It's quite clear that under the Constitution I'm required to reduce the punitive damages award and it's just a question of how much."
U.S. Supreme Court rulings limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to 9 to 1.
The judge said he would also take into account the fact that Hardeman was now in full remission and unlikely to suffer as much as he had in the past.
Bayer says Roundup — and its active ingredient glyphosate — are safe for human use and not carcinogenic. However, in 2015 the World Health Organization's cancer arm reached a different conclusion, classifying glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
Roundup products for sale in California.
Litigation Hits Share Price
The Leverkusen-based company is facing lawsuits from more than 13,400 plaintiffs in the U.S.
Earlier this year, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann conceded the effect the court cases had had on the share price: "We have lost two cases in lower courts. That is why the company is massively affected. You see it in our share price," he said at an academic business event in Cologne in April. "You see it selectively, mainly here in Germany and in France — less so in the USA — in our reputational scores."
Over the past year, Bayer's share price has dropped dramatically and the company has seen €30 billion (approximately $33.7 billion) wiped off its market value since the first court ruling last August. Its share price has fallen from €96 (approximately $108) in August 2018 to €58.63 (approximately $66) at close of markets in Frankfurt on Monday.
Thanks @EcoWatch for reposting my article #Glyphosate Spin Check: Tracking claims about the world's most widely used herbicide https://t.co/gBz2vnBRs9 @USRighttoKnow
— Stacy Malkan (@StacyMalkan) May 2, 2019
Reposted with permission from our media associate DW.
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