(Bloomberg) — Bayer AG Chief Executive Officer Bill Anderson said the wave of lawsuits over its widely used weedkiller Roundup is an “existential” threat to the company as it burns through cash.
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“The glyphosate litigation topic is an existential topic for our company because it does threaten to first remove our ability to continue to innovate for farmers and for food security,” Anderson said in a speech in Chicago on Thursday, referring to Roundup’s key ingredient.
The legal woes have led Bayer to set aside $16 billion to resolve the Roundup suits. It spent roughly 13 billion euros ($14 billion) on overall litigation between 2019 and 2023, eroding the company’s cash generation, according to a March presentation.
The company is considering whether to use a controversial legal maneuver, dubbed the Texas Two-Step bankruptcy, in an attempt to settle tens of thousands of US lawsuits claiming Roundup causes cancer, people familiar with the company’s thinking told Bloomberg in March.
Read More: Bayer Weighs ‘Texas Two-Step’ Bankruptcy Filing Over Roundup
The chemical conglomerate is spending more on lawsuits than on R&D, Anderson said. He pointed out that Bayer is the largest R&D investor in agriculture, and the legal issues put at risk the progress needed to feed 2 billion more people by mid-century with less water and land, Anderson said.
Bayer inherited the roundup lawsuits through its 2018 purchase of agriculture behemoth Monsanto for $63 billion. Bayer has vigorously defended its claim that glyphosate and glyphosate-based formulations are safe.
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