Bayer has been financially devastated by the glyphosate liabilities it acquired in its acquisition of Monsanto. Pending legislation may protect it and the other big chemical companies from anything like that ever happening again. From Dr. Meryl Nass at malone.news:
Dr. Meryl Nass, Exclusive to Malone.News
In 2013, Bayer had its 150th anniversary. It was riding high. It sent an airship and anniversary exhibition around the world to celebrate. Its stock price was 27, the highest it had been since it entered the NY stock exchange in 2002. It was bullish and interested in acquisitions.
Bayer decided to go after Monsanto. According to Fortune,
Bayer bought Monsanto as part of its reinvention as a life-science firm with a focus on health and agriculture. At the time the deal was proposed in 2016, the competitive landscape of the agricultural-science space was shifting dramatically—Dow and DuPont were merging, and so were ChemChina and Syngenta. Bayer wanted to become a bigger player in seeds and genetically modified crops, and Monsanto offered just that.
But there were potential problems. The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer had just reported that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s most popular product, the herbicide Roundup, was a probable human carcinogen.
By the time the sale was completed for $63 billion dollars in 2018, thousands of lawsuits against glyphosate were developing. The first case to trial, that of groundskeeper DeWayne Johnson, ended in the plaintiff’s favor just two months after Bayer concluded the purchase. Johnson was awarded $278 million by the jury. That amount was reduced twice in subsequent proceedings to $21 million.
