The Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Thursday June 25 in favor of the German agrochemical giant Bayer, which hopes that this will render null and void tens of thousands of complaints against its flagship glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup.
Seven of the institution’s nine judges ruled that the company could not be held responsible for the absence of warnings relating to a possible risk of cancer on its Roundup products. They emphasize that American health authorities do not require anything of the kind, not considering glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) to be carcinogenic.
Roundup, used as a spray, is the best-selling weedkiller in the world. It is marketed by Monsanto, which became a subsidiary of Bayer in 2018.
The group from Leverkusen (west Germany) quickly welcomed the decision in a press release, saying that it “should contribute significantly to containing litigation linked to Roundup after almost a decade of legal battles”. Its shares soared by more than 19% on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
For Bayer, the disputes linked to glyphosate are a burden in terms of image, but also financially: they have cost it more than 10 billion dollars since 2018. The group has set aside more than eight billion in recent months for the proceedings still underway. On its website, Bayer claims that science has “clearly” concluded that the chemical substance is safe for human health.
“Very hard blow”
At the origin of the case taken up by the Supreme Court: an order by Monsanto in Missouri (central United States) to compensate John Durnell to the tune of $1.25 million. John Durnell developed a form of cancer – non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – which he attributes to using weedkiller for around 20 years. According to him, the manufacturer should have mentioned such a risk on its labels.
The Missouri ruling, upheld on appeal, triggered the filing of a host of new complaints, which Bayer wants to see inadmissible. The government of Donald Trump, which considers glyphosate essential for American farmers, rallied behind the German group during the proceedings before the Supreme Court.
“Federal law requires Monsanto to use labeling approved by the EPA (the federal environmental protection agency, competent in the matter, editor’s note) without mention of the danger of cancer,” considered the conservative majority body, censoring the decision of the court of appeal.
“More than 60,000 cases were pending in American courts when the Supreme Court took up this case. Their fate remains to be written,” reacted lawyer Brent Wisner, who has been suing Monsanto since 2018, in a statement. According to him, the decision “deals a very hard blow to the ability to hold companies accountable.”
The regulation of the chemical substance has been debated for many years. Glyphosate was classified as a “probable carcinogen” in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been banned in France since the end of 2018 for domestic use.
The European Commission decided at the end of 2023 to renew its authorization for ten years, considering that the product has “no harmful effects on human health nor any unacceptable effects on the environment”.
