Bayer has announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement between its indirect subsidiary Monsanto and plaintiffs alleging that exposure to Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Company leaders say they are hoping this will resolve the vast majority of remaining Roundup cases.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a news release that the proposed class settlement agreement, together with a pending Supreme Court case, “provides an essential path out of the litigation uncertainty and enables us to devote our full attention to furthering the innovations that lie at the core of our mission: Health for all, Hunger for none.”

The Supreme Court has set an argument date of April 27 on a petition brought by Monsanto where the court will seek to answer the question of whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act “preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.”

The settlement was filed Tuesday in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, which still must decide whether to approve it. Anderson said the settlement is open to all outstanding plaintiffs, including those litigating as part of multi-district federal litigation in California. Bayer has estimated the number of outstanding cases nationwide at about 67,000.

Bayer previously spent about $10 billion to settle about 100,000 claims and has set aside $5.9 billion for future cases. Anderson has warned that if the company cannot resolve the claims, it may have to discontinue its glyphosate business. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the popular herbicide Roundup.

“The goal in reaching this class settlement and pursuing our Supreme Court case is to reach the greatest possible closure for the Roundup litigation,” Bill Dodero, senior vice president and general counsel at Bayer, said in an online announcement of the settlement.

“Today's agreement addresses the bulk of eligible current and future cases,” Anderson said Tuesday in announcing the settlement.

“It wouldn't even be possible without the Supreme Court's decision to accept our case,” he continued. A decision from that court favoring Bayer “would address cases not covered by the settlement, including significant adverse, pending judgments, plus a favorable decision from the Supreme Court would both disincentivize and cover potential opt-outs from the settlement.”

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