The Leverkusen-based chemical giant Bayer had its day in U.S. court on Tuesday in a case that could result in the loss of billions of dollars. Its loss in court in 2018 to a groundskeeper who charged that Bayer’s weed killer Roundup had given him cancer meant it owed the man $78 million. But the guilty finding set off a much larger series of suits against the company that many believe will require upwards of $10 billion to settle out of court. Bayer is calling for that original guilty verdict to be annulled, claiming that the trial was handled improperly. Moreover, it claims that regulators in other countries have not found the active ingredient in Roundup to be a cause of cancer, which freed Bayer from the duty to warn its customers of the danger. Lawyers for the groundskeeper charge that Bayer has willfully misled the public as well as scientists about the safety of its product. Bayer acquired the product when it bought Montsanto in 2018 for $63 billion.
