Florian Mueller

They were in a big crisis, and now this offers them a way out.

So at the end, it's great news for the company and for their CEO, Bill Anderson.

Basically, this case is about the allegation that the weed killer Roundup would have caused cancer.

And so they've been battling over this for years.

And a lot of different state courts basically ruled that Bayer was liable and basically they had failed to warn Bayer.

the consumers of the risk that the product might cause cancer.

And Bayer has always argued that basically a lot of state regulators, including the EPA in the US, had said that their product was safe and that actually they were not allowed to put a warning label.

on their bottles.

And so in the end, this became a matter for the U.S.

Supreme Court, which now needed to decide.

This is very significant for the company because Bayer has already paid more than 10 billion US dollars in litigation ever since they bought Monsanto and they might have ended up paying a huge amount more if this verdict now wouldn't have come in and given them a stronger legal argument in the tens of thousands of cases which are still ongoing.

Other claimants might find it harder now to sue Bayer

And at the same time, Bayer right now is pursuing another class settlement.

So that's why investors are so relieved because basically the litigation costs risk now is finally known.

And this is not such a grave danger anymore.

So the verdict of the US Supreme Court is the first step.

Now the next step will be the finalization of the settlement, which is expected for the upcoming weeks.

And once all of that is settled, then basically Bayer can go back to focus on its turnaround.

Because over the last couple of years,

Because of all of this litigation going on, the company was pretty much barred from doing anything else.