(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG shares fell after Washington state’s top court said it will review a case alleging that toxic chemicals from the German company’s Monsanto unit caused brain injuries to three teachers.
The court said it accepted the case for review in a filing on its website, while also denying an application for a speedy review. Bayer shares fell more than 7% in Frankfurt on Wednesday morning, the most intraday since March 5. The stock is down almost 20% this year.
Monsanto had persuaded an appeals court in Washington state to throw out the $185 million jury award in May, after a three-judge panel found flaws in the 2021 trial over claims that Monsanto’s polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, caused the illnesses to the Seattle-area educators.
The case was the first of more than half a dozen verdicts with combined damages of more than $1.5 billion to reach the appeals court over alleged PCB exposure at the Sky Valley Education Center.
Bayer sees no basis for a different outcome on appeal, it said in a statement. The company added that the Washington Supreme Court needed to preclude the incorrect application of Missouri law in the litigation and not allow punitive damages. Bayer has filed a motion to pause another upcoming trial pending the Washington top court’s decision.
Monsanto, primarily a manufacturer of seeds and herbicides, also made PCBs, which were banned in the US in 1979 after researchers found they posed health risks. Bayer completed the acquisition of Monsanto in June 2018.
The PCB-related litigation is just one of the legal problems related to the Monsanto purchase. High profile lawsuits over whether Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer caused plaintiffs’ cancers has weighed heavily on Bayer’s stock.
Bayer’s exposure to the Roundup litigation could exceed the company’s $16 billion reserve by around $1 billion, according to a recent note from Bloomberg Intelligence. The company has around 57,000 cases related to Roundup that haven’t been settled. The company insists that Roundup is safe.
--With assistance from Karin Matussek.
(Updates with Bayer statement and additional detail from paragraph five)
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