The CEO of German chemical giant Bayer, Werner Baumann, has defended the multibillion-dollar takeover of Monsanto despite the huge legal costs that are piling up over the firms Roundup weed killer.
“The Monsanto acquisition was and is a good idea,” Baumann told Frankfurter Allgemeine when asked if he would change his mind about buying the US firm if he could. The acquisition was carried out after careful due diligence, he said.
Bayer is currently facing a total of 11,200 US cases over Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate, which is the most popular weed killer in the US.
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The German company has rejected the accusations, claiming there are hundreds of scientific studies and regulatory authorities that show glyphosate is safe to use.
“Regulatory authorities around the world consider glyphosate-based herbicides as safe when used as directed,” it said, highlighting “800 rigorous studies” of the effects of glyphosate.
Bayers stock has lost almost 40 percent of its value since the US$63 billion (€55.6 billion) Monsanto acquisition in 2018.
Just two months after the acquisition was completed, Monsanto lost a case to a school groundskeeper suffering from terminal non-Hodgkins lymphoma, who had sued the company over the glyphosate weed killers Roundup and Ranger Pro. The jury ordered the company to pay a staggering $289 million in damages after ruling that the biotech corporation failed to properly warn users of Roundups health hazards.
In a separate US case last week, a jury decided that Roundup was a Read More
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