For months now, Bayer has been hinting, then openly threatening, to pull its signature product Roundup from the market altogether in response to the tsunami of lawsuits alleging its key ingredient, glyphosate, causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Observers, including farm groups, are closely watching to see how serious Bayer’s threats to do just that.
On Sept. 30, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear Bayer’s appeal of a verdict award of $611 million. The initial jury award, to four plaintiffs, originally totaled $1.56 billion, but the trial judge reduced the punitive damages, bringing the total award down to $611 million. This figure was upheld by the Missouri Court of Appeals in May 2025. Bayer appealed that decision, and it was that appeal the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear.
In early 2024, Bayer cited a report by the Institute for Legal Reform that highlights the role of the “litigation industry” in legal challenges. The report claims that third-party litigation funding, in which hedge funds and other financiers fund “shares” in litigation outcomes for a cut of the results, are driving the Roundup lawsuits. It claims the relationships between funders and law firms are often concealed from defendants and judges.
The third-party financiers evidently like the odds, which are much better than lottery-grade. Bayer spent $10 billion to settle one tranche of lawsuits in 2020. In addition, $6 billion was earmarked to its Roundup reserve fund to deal with the pending 61,000 lawsuits.
At some point, Bayer may decide the costs of this type of asymmetric lawfare are not worth it. The latest decision by the Missouri Supreme Court may nudge Bayer closer to that decision.
(This story was revised and corrected at 11:10 a.m. Oct. 17).
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
