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(Sharecast News) - Bayer has proposed a $7.25bn settlement to resolve tens of thousands of US lawsuits alleging that its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer, according to reports on Wednesday.
The deal, filed in state court in St Louis, Missouri, would cover both existing and certain future claims linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and still requires judicial approval.
The German group, which acquired Monsanto for $63bn in 2018, had faced years of costly litigation over Roundup, one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States.
Plaintiffs argued they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to the product.
Bayer maintained that decades of studies showed Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use and disputes claims that it failed to warn consumers adequately.
According to Reuters, Bayer was currently facing claims from around 65,000 plaintiffs in US courts.
The proposed nationwide settlement would establish a long-term claims programme funded through capped annual payments over up to 21 years.
Individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to Roundup before 17 February this year would be eligible to seek compensation, with payouts determined through a tiered system based on factors such as age and extent of exposure.
The company had already paid roughly $10bn to resolve earlier Roundup litigation, as reported by the BBC, but those agreements did not cover future claims.
Bayer said it expected litigation provisions to increase from 7.8bn to 11.8bn and anticipated around 5bn in litigation-related payouts in 2026, warning that free cash flow for the year was now expected to be negative, Reuters reported.
The proposed settlement came as the US Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments in a separate case that could significantly limit Bayer's liability.
As reported by the Guardian, the company argued that approval of Roundup's labelling by the US Environmental Protection Agency should pre-empt state-level failure-to-warn claims.
That case, scheduled for oral arguments in April, would not be directly affected by the proposed settlement but was seen by Bayer as critical to achieving broader legal closure.
Chief executive Bill Anderson said the agreement offered a "road to closure" after years of litigation uncertainty, and told investors he expected the vast majority of claimants to participate.
At 1010 CET (0910 GMT), shares in Bayer were down 8.53% in Frankfurt at 45.11.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.