The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bayer last Thursday in a contentious lawsuit concerning glyphosate, effectively neutralizing multi-billion dollar claims for damages. Seven of the nine justices joined across political lines to support the reasoning laid out by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch presented a dissenting opinion.
The case revolved around whether Bayer could be held liable for failing to include a cancer warning on the labels of its “Roundup” product. This was complex because the environmental protection agency had neither mandated such a warning nor concluded that the product was carcinogenic. The Court ultimately decided that the authorization requirements set forth by US federal agencies supersede the rights of individual states.
Following the judgment, Bayer shares surged by 16% in the short term. The manufacturer of “Roundup” stated that the decision “should significantly reduce the litigation surrounding Roundup after nearly a decade of legal disputes.” Bayer anticipates that the ruling “will lead to the dismissal of current lawsuits and prevent potential future claims-as far as they are based on alleged missing warning labels.”
