Nightmare day at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange for Bayer. The stock of the German pharmaceutical giant came to lose more than 10%, losing almost 8 billion in capitalisation. The rain in sales was triggered by the surprise ruling that arrived on Sunday, when a United States court sentenced Monsanto - the agricultural biotech giant with which Bayer completed its merger this year - to a maxi-compensation of 289 million dollars in against a gardener who allegedly contracted cancer from using some of the company's herbicides.
According to the San Francisco judge who issued the ruling, Monsanto failed to report the risks associated with the use of the product containing glyphosate, a substance already at the center of controversy and legal disputes as it was considered harmful, as it should have. Monsanto has denied the allegations and has already announced it will appeal.
Dewayne Johnson, a school keeper in the San Francisco area, used Monsanto herbicide for work and developed a rash in 2014, at the age of 42. Later, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Monsanto's lawyers argue that that type of lymphoma takes years to manifest and that therefore Johnson must have had it since before his tenure in the school district.
This is the first case that brings to the Court a complaint linked to the alleged link between glyphosate and a cancer diagnosis. “The jury was wrong,” Monsanto's vice president replied hotly.
However, there are about 5.000 complaints in the US similar to the one at the center of the Dewayne Johnson case, which could therefore set an important precedent for the American judicial system. Also for this reason, the multinational now risks receiving hundreds of other complaints.
