$7.25B Roundup Class Settlement Proposed To Resolve Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Lawsuits

Offer to provide Roundup payouts comes as Bayer prepares to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that it should be granted immunity from all claims.

As part of an attempt to resolve both current and future lawsuits over the failure to warn about the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from Roundup, Bayer announced this week that it has agreed to pay another $7.25 billion in damages as part of a class action settlement, which will require court approval.

The settlement was announced in a press release issued late yesterday, as the manufacturer continues to pursue an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it should be immune from all liability in the cases due to federal preemption.

Over the past decade, Bayer and its Monsanto subsidiary have faced more than 120,000 Roundup lawsuits, each raising similar allegations that former users of the glyphosate-based weed killer developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other forms of cancer after routinely spraying the herbicide around their house, or as part of their occupation.

The litigation emerged after a March 2015 report was issued by the International Agency For Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, which warned that glyphosate was likely a cancer-causing substance for humans. Monsanto, which refuted IARC’s findings, was later bought by Bayer.

The first Roundup cancer trial went before a California jury in August 2018, resulting in a $289 million verdict, which was later reduced to $78 million. The first federal Roundup bellwether trial resulted in a jury ordering Monsanto and Bayer to pay the plaintiff $80 million, and a third trial in California state court resulted in a $2 billion verdict in May 2019, which was later reduced to $87 million.

After failing to establish that it could successfully defend the cases at trial, Bayer previously agreed to pay more than $10 billion to resolve a large group of early Roundup claims. However, thousands of plaintiffs rejected those Roundup settlement offers, and new lawsuits have continued to be filed as former users are diagnosed with cancer years after exposure.

To resolve all remaining and future claims, Tuesday’s announcement indicates the company will pay declining capped annual payments over the next 21 years, totaling $7.25 billion. It also indicated that certain other Roundup settlements have also been reached, yet the details of those deals were not disclosed. Bayer’s Roundup settlement payouts have been secured through an $8 billion bank loan, the press release states.

Bayer Continues Push for Roundup Lawsuit Immunity

Prior to announcing this new deal, Bayer has increasingly focused its defense on federal preemption arguments, contending that it cannot be held liable for failure-to-warn claims because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would not have approved stronger cancer warnings on Roundup’s label.

Last month, the Supreme Court announced it was granting a writ of certiorari to Monsanto and Bayer, who have asked the court to consider an appeal filed in April 2025, stemming from an October 2023 verdict that awarded $1.25 million in damages to a consumer. The press release indicates Bayer will continue to pursue that path as part of its efforts to resolve the litigation permanently.

“This litigation and the resulting cost underscore the need for guidance from the Supreme Court on clear regulation in American agriculture. The class settlement and Supreme Court case are both necessary to help bring the strongest, most certain and most timely containment to this litigation.”

– Bill Anderson, Bayer CEO

The Supreme Court is expected to render a decision before the end of this judicial season in June 2026. The settlement agreement does not include an admission of guilt, and the manufacturer claims it is agreeing to the deal “solely to contain the litigation.”

Prior reports have suggested that if the efforts to seek immunity under federal preemption had failed, Bayer was considering seeking liability protection for Monsanto through the U.S. bankruptcy process, which likely had a substantial impact on the negotiations for the Roundup class settlement now proposed.

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