BRIEF—Bayer shares suffer on Roundup ruling

German life sciences major Bayer closed 2% lower following Tuesday’s trading.

The company suffered a setback in relation to Roundup (glyphosate), the weedkiller that the group acquired when buying Monsanto in 2018.

Bayer has had to face a mounting tide of lawsuits claiming that the product causes cancer and has already lost three trials that led to hefty payouts.

Reuters has reported that on Tuesday, the US Supreme Court dismissed the company’s bid to dismiss legal action, keeping in place a lower court decision that upheld $25 million in damages awarded to California resident Edwin Hardeman, a Roundup user who blamed his cancer on the weedkiller.

Bayer is hopeful that it is edging closer to resolving the Roundup issue once and for all. The company said in its March annual report that it had resolved about 107,000 cases out of about 138,000 cases overall.