JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Delays could be in store for a proposed $7.25 billion settlement covering thousands of claims that the maker of Roundup weedkiller failed to warn people the product could cause cancer. An attorney opposed to the settlement filed paperwork Friday to move the case to federal court instead of a Missouri court, where people face a June 4 deadline to opt out of the settlement. The dispute about who should preside over the proposed settlement could disrupt its deadlines and delay a resolution about whether it should be approved.The legal wrangling over the settlement is playing out as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a case that could block thousands of lawsuits filed in state courts against agrochemical-maker Bayer, which added Roundup to its portfolio when it acquired Missouri-based Monsanto in 2018. Bayer contends the state-level claims that it failed to warn of cancer risks should be forbidden because it followed federal labeling standards that don’t require a warning.
Germany-based Bayer also disputes the assertion that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
3 MIN READ
The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that it’s not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed. But plaintiffs point to a 2015 decision by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classified the chemical as “probably carcinogenic.”
