Lawsuits Against Bayer Are Sprouting Like Weeds

Everybody knows that when one company merges with another, the acquirer assumes the legal liabilities of the acquired. Presumably when Bayer AG, the German drugmaker, completed its purchase of Monsanto Co. last year, it knew that. Monsanto was facing 1,300 lawsuits claiming its popular weedkiller, Roundup, causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But Monsanto appeared unworried: “The company believes that it has meritorious factual and legal defenses to these cases and is vigorously defending them,” it said in its 2017 annual report.

Oops. Since the merger, three cases have gone to trial—and Monsanto-Bayer has lost all three. In May a jury awarded two Roundup users $1 billion each in punitive damages. While those awards will surely be lowered on appeal, the number of cases has quadrupled since the takeover.