The Kansas legislation is one of about a dozen Bayer-supported bills introduced in state legislatures. It comes just weeks after the company announced a proposed $7.25 billion (C$9.85 billion) settlement that would resolve most of approximately 65,000 outstanding lawsuits related to Roundup.

Bayer acquired Roundup as part of its $63 billion purchase of agrochemical company Monsanto in ​2018, and with it an avalanche of litigation from people who say the product caused them to develop cancer. The company is supporting state and federal legislative efforts to try to head off further Roundup-related litigation, a company spokesperson said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Glyphosate is a key crop protection product for Canadian farmers. Glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup has been the subject of thousands of lawsuits in the U.S. and in Canada related to claims it causes cancer.

So far Bayer has had mixed success. Two bills have passed in North Dakota and Georgia; the outlook for the Kansas bill is uncertain.

Opponents of the Kansas bill distrust the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment that glyphosate pesticides such as Bayer’s Roundup product are not likely to cause cancer, while proponents fear that the widely used pesticide will be made more expensive or pulled from the market, negatively affecting many businesses in the heavily agricultural state.

“I’ll wake up and I’ll have over 400 emails and half of them are saying yes, half of them are saying no,” said Democratic state senator Silas Miller, who sits on the agriculture committee. He had not decided how to vote when he spoke to Reuters.

Kenny Titus, a Republican senator on the committee, said he was also inundated with emails both for and against the bill, but planned to oppose it.

In an earnings call on March 4, the company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of about 3.76 billion euros (C$5.93 billion), attributed in part to the cost of litigation. Bayer is also the defendant in a case before the Supreme Court, which is set to hear arguments in April on whether the company had a duty to warn customers that glyphosate could cause cancer.

In Washington, the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday morning advanced a draft farm bill also supported by Bayer requiring uniform pesticide labels nationwide. If passed, it would bar local governments from requiring chemical companies to put health warnings on the labels of pesticide products that differ from language used by the EPA.

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to encourage more domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup.

MAHA blowback

The move has generated blowback from the so-called MAHA coalition, many of whom supported Trump in the 2024 election, and whose advocates are now in the administration — including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Just as the large MAHA base begins to consider what to do at midterms, the President issued an Executive Order to expand domestic glyphosate production. The very same carcinogenic pesticide that MAHA cares about most,” MAHA-affiliated pesticide activist Kelly Ryerson wrote on social media after the order was announced.

Titus, who said many of his goals overlap with the MAHA movement, said that for his Republican colleagues, the split on pesticides among conservatives had put them in “an interesting position.”

A Missouri state court judge last week preliminarily approved Bayer’s proposed $7.25 billion settlement of a nationwide class-action lawsuit brought by people who say Roundup caused them to contract non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The judge said he will hear objections from people affected before deciding in July whether to grant final approval.

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The German company said the proposed nationwide settlement, expected to be filed on Tuesday in state court in St. Louis, Missouri, would establish a long-term claims program funded by capped annual payments over up to 21 years.

The company, which acquired Roundup as part of its purchase of agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018, is facing claims over Roundup from approximately 65,000 plaintiffs in U.S. state and federal courts.

The plaintiffs say they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other forms of cancer due to using the weedkiller, either at home or on the job.

Proposed settlement aimed at heading off future lawsuits

The proposed settlement covers the bulk of the lawsuits, but will need a judge’s approval.

It is also designed to head off future lawsuits, and includes a provision that allows people who can prove they have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and were exposed to Roundup prior to Tuesday to file claims to receive a portion of the settlement for up to 21 years.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said on a call with investors and reporters that he is confident the proposed class action settlement will resolve the vast majority of the claims, although he declined to say how many people currently support the deal.

The company said it had separately reached confidential settlements to resolve other Roundup cases with specific law firms, although the company would not name the firms or specify the amount of those deals.

Company paid out US$10 billion to settle previous suits

Roundup is among the most widely used weedkillers in the United States. Bayer has said decades of studies have shown Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use.

The company had previously paid about $10 billion (C$13.6 billion) to settle most of the Roundup lawsuits that were pending as of 2020, but failed to get a settlement then covering future cases.

It has had a mixed record with cases that have gone to trial. It prevailed in a series of Roundup trials, but has been hit with large jury awards in the past few years, including a $2.1 billion (C$2.86 billion) verdict in a case in the U.S. state of Georgia in March.

The verdicts shattered both investor confidence and company hopes that the worst of the Roundup litigation was over, and put pressure on Bayer to find a comprehensive solution to the lawsuits.

Supreme Court to hear appeal

Tuesday’s proposed settlement comes after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in a case that Bayer argues will sharply limit its liability in the litigation.

The company said the Supreme Court case, scheduled for oral arguments at the end of April, remains essential to resolving the Roundup litigation.

A favorable ruling would wipe out several large verdicts that remain on appeal and would also prevent future claims from individuals who choose to opt out of the nationwide settlement.

Bayer expects its provisions and litigation liabilities to rise from 7.8 billion euros (C$12.6 billion) to 11.8 billion euros. It anticipates around 5 billion euros in litigation-related payouts in 2026, and now expects negative free cash flow for the year.

The company has postponed publication of its 2025 results and 2026 guidance to March 4 to reflect the agreements.

— Reporting by Diana Novak Jones and Kirsti Knolle; Additional reporting by Dietrich Knauth

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The Sunterra group of companies got its start in the hog breeding business in 1970 and later expanded into meat processing, food processing and retail. The lawsuit relates to U.S. hog operations which were later sold to Tyson Foods.

King’s Bench justice Michael Lema, in a written decision, found that Sunterra and Ray Price participated in a cheque-kiting scheme that cost the American lender that amount.

“I find that cheque kiting occured here, that the Canadian Sunterra entities involved fraudulently misrepresented that south-going cheques were anchored by sufficient funds to be honoured, that those entities intended Compeer to rely on those misrepresentations, that Compeer so relied, and in doing so suffered losses of approximately $35 million USD, for which a summary judgment in favour of Compeer is appropriate,” he wrote.

“I also find Mr. Ray Price, president and a director of those entities, personally liable, with those entities, for those losses.”

The scheme came to light last year after Compeer froze the accounts associated with Sunterra’s U.S. companies and alleged that kiting was occurring.

Lema’s decision noted that in 2024, about $6.3 billion in intercompany transfers were moved back and forth.

Sunterra has remained open while operating under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and trying to restructure.

In Canada, Sunterra’s lender, National Bank, also filed a claim against the company, but Lema ruled it couldn’t be proven.

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ADM reached the settlement without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, and said the Justice Department, which had been conducting its own probe, has closed its investigation without bringing criminal charges.

The agreement draws a line under a years-long scandal that forced the company, one of the world’s largest agricultural traders and processors, to twice revise its financial reports, and sparked heavy share losses and shareholder lawsuits.

WHY IT MATTERS: ADM is one of the world’s largest agricultural traders and processors.

The SEC on Tuesday separately sued ADM’s former Chief Financial Officer Vikram Luthar for his role in the allegedly fraudulent adjustments and filed settled charges against two other top executives.

The SEC settlement includes charges brought against former Nutrition business unit President Vince Macciocchi and Ray Young, who was ADM’s CFO until 2022. Macciocchi has agreed to pay more than $529,000 in fines and other fees, while Young will pay more than $650,000.

The SEC complaint against Luthar, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accuses him of breaking federal securities laws by helping ADM mislead investors and by failing to properly report and account for the company’s activities.

Regulators allege he played a role in fraudulent conduct, helped ADM violate rules and benefitted from the fraud. The SEC is seeking to bar Luthar from serving as an officer or director of a public company, and force him to pay a penalty and other fees.

Luthar’s attorney Junaid Zubairi called the allegations “meritless” and said ADM’s own investigation found that Luthar had not acted improperly.

A lawyer for ADM declined to comment further. A lawyer for Macciocchi also declined to comment and a lawyer for Young did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the closing of the criminal case.

In a statement on the company’s website, CEO Juan Luciano said the company is pleased to put the matter behind them and has taken “extensive actions” to enhance internal controls.

ADM shares were near unchanged in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Probe centred on nutrition unit

Federal prosecutors opened a probe in early 2024 into accounting issues at ADM tied to the performance of its highly touted “Nutrition” unit, Reuters previously reported. The government investigations as well as an internal inquiry led to the exit of Luthar.

The ADM investigation involved internal company transactions that inaccurately reported financial results for the “Nutrition” unit, which was launched in 2018 to accelerate development of high-value specialty ingredients for the food, beverage and animal feed industries.

ADM cut a combined $228 million from Nutrition’s operating profit between 2018 and 2023 as a result of the revisions, company filings show.

News of the accounting irregularities broke in early 2024, sending ADM shares plummeting and heaping pressure on top executives, including Luciano, as top executive compensation had been tied to growth in the Nutrition unit.

The investigation into “intersegment” transactions between the company’s business segments focused on whether ADM deliberately boosted Nutrition’s performance by providing it with below-cost goods from other company units.

The SEC considered ADM’s cooperation in accepting the settlement offer, the regulator said in a statement.

Specifically, the company conducted an internal investigation, voluntarily reported its findings to agency staff, and provided the staff with additional analyses from an outside accounting expert.

ADM’s remedial measures included implementing new internal accounting controls around intersegment transactions, amending its policies and procedures, and testing the effectiveness of its new controls, among other things, the SEC said.

— Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Jasper Ward in Washington and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago

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The justices took up Bayer’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling in a case brought by a man who said he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after years of exposure to Roundup. The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a $1.25 million (C$1.74 million) verdict that a St. Louis jury awarded the plaintiff, John Durnell, over his cancer diagnosis.

Bayer shares jumped almost five per cent on the news that the court would hear the case. The court has yet to announce when it will hear arguments in the dispute.

In a statement, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said the court’s decision was “an important step in our multi-pronged strategy to significantly contain this litigation.”

“It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements,” Anderson said.

An attorney for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump administration urged Supreme Court to take appeal

The Missouri Court of Appeals rejected the German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company’s contention that federal law governing pesticides bars lawsuits making claims over pesticides under state laws.

Bayer is facing similar claims from approximately 65,000 plaintiffs in U.S. state and federal courts. Roundup is among the most widely used weedkillers in the United States.

President Donald Trump’s administration in December urged the Supreme Court to take up Bayer’s appeal. In a brief filed at the court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer offered the administration’s view that Bayer is correct in its reading of the law at issue.

Bayer is arguing that consumers should not be able to sue it under state law for failing to warn that Roundup increases cancer risk because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found no such risk and requires no such warning. Bayer argued that federal law does not allow it to add any warning to the product beyond the EPA-approved label.

The company has made the U.S. Supreme Court a key part of its strategy to manage the claims, as a ruling that federal law preempts claims brought under state law would shut down the vast majority of the lawsuits.

Lawyers for Durnell had asked the Supreme Court to turn away Bayer’s appeal. They said Durnell relied on Bayer’s advertising and not just the label when he chose to use Roundup, and the company’s marketing failed to warn consumers of the product’s risks.

Lawsuits continue to pour in

The company has paid about $10 billion (C$13.9 billion) to settle most of the Roundup lawsuits that were pending as of 2020, but failed to get a settlement covering future cases. New lawsuits have continued to pour in since then. Plaintiffs have said they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other forms of cancer due to using Roundup, either at home or on the job.

Bayer, which acquired Roundup as part of its $63 billion (C$87.7 billion) purchase of agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018, has said that decades of studies have shown Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use.

“EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings,” Sauer said in the administration’s brief to the Supreme Court.

The company has had a mixed record at trial in the Roundup lawsuits. Bayer has prevailed in a series of Roundup trials, but it was also hit with large jury awards in the past few years, including a $2.1 billion verdict in a case in the U.S. state of Georgia in 2025.

Bayer has asked the Supreme Court to consider the Roundup litigation before, but was rebuffed in 2022. Since then, one federal appeals court agreed with the company in a split from other appeals courts.

Bayer has threatened to withdraw Roundup from the U.S. market as it fights the litigation. The company replaced glyphosate in U.S. consumer products with different weed-killing substances.

— Additional reporting by Andrew Chung

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The proposed settlement in the federal lawsuit was disclosed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs — grocery stores, food distributors and other businesses that bought beef products directly from Tyson — said in the filing that they are working on a final settlement agreement to present to a judge for approval.

Tyson, and the attorneys for the beef purchasers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The buyers had accused Tyson and several other major beef producers of conspiring to charge inflated prices for retail sale-ready consumer cuts or edible boxed beef between 2015 and 2022.

The plaintiffs include Pennsylvania-based Redner’s Markets and Mississippi-based R&D Marketing.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs estimated thousands of so-called direct purchasers are part of the proposed class.

The Tyson accord is the second for the direct purchasers, after JBS USA agreed to pay $52.5 million. The company denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to the deal, which was approved by a judge in 2022.

Tyson and JBS are the two largest defendants. Two remaining defendants, Cargill and National Beef, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Arkansas-based Tyson, the largest U.S. meat company, settled related price-fixing claims from consumers in the beef litigation for $55 million.

Tyson also separately agreed this year to pay $85 million to settle a proposed consumer class-action accusing it of conspiring with rivals to inflate pork prices.

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In a brief filed at the court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer bolstered Bayer’s effort to limit the lawsuits and potentially avert billions of dollars in damages, saying the company was correct that the federal law governing pesticides preempts lawsuits that make claims over the products under state law.

WHY IT MATTERS: Bayer has told U.S. officials it could exit the Roundup business unless legal protection is strengthened.

The shares had surged 14.9 per cent to €35 (C$56.80) early Tuesday morning.

“We see the Solicitor General’s recommendation as an important step towards containing glyphosate litigation,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note, adding the Supreme Court was likely to rule next year.

The analysts flagged there could be a reduction in provisions for glyphosate litigation, which Bayer has said were $7.6 billion (C$10.6 billion) at the end of September.

Bayer has asked the justices to hear its appeal of a lower court’s decision to uphold a $1.25 million verdict awarded by a St. Louis jury in a Missouri state court case in which a plaintiff named John Durnell sued after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma he attributed to his exposure to Roundup. Bayer is facing more than 67,000 such lawsuits in U.S. state and federal courts.

The German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, which acquired Roundup as part of its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018, has said that decades of studies have shown Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use.

Label fight

Sauer told the justices that upholding the lower court’s decision would allow juries to second guess the science-based judgments of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings,” Sauer said in the brief.

“Where, as here, EPA has specified the health warnings that should appear on a particular pesticide’s label, a manufacturer should not be left subject” to state labelling regimes each prescribing different requirements, Sauer said.

The brief comes as the Trump administration — which has aimed to address concerns from agricultural groups about potential restrictions on agrochemicals — must also contend with supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, who have highlighted possible health risks associated with pesticides.

Bayer’s effort has drawn support from pro-business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which said that allowing Bayer to face the liability opens up many corporations that follow federal law to litigation.

Lawyers for Durnell asked the Supreme Court to turn away Bayer’s appeal. They said the plaintiff relied on Bayer’s advertising and not just the label when he chose to use Roundup, and the company’s marketing failed to warn consumers of the product’s risks.

The U.S. Supreme Court asked the Trump administration in June for its views in the case.

Mixed record

Roundup is among the most widely used weedkillers in the United States.

The company has paid about $10 billion to settle most of the Roundup lawsuits that were pending as of 2020, but failed to get a settlement covering future cases. New lawsuits have continued to pour in since then. Plaintiffs have said they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other forms of cancer due to using Roundup, either at home or on the job.

The company has had a mixed record at trial in the Roundup lawsuits. Bayer has prevailed in a series of Roundup trials, but it was also hit with large jury awards in the past few years, including a $2.1 billion verdict in a case in the U.S. state of Georgia in March.

Bayer settled the Georgia case and three others that had been on appeal in November.

Bayer has threatened to withdraw Roundup from the U.S. market as it fights the litigation. The company replaced glyphosate in U.S. consumer products with different weedkilling substances.

— Additional reporting by Andrew Chung

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The preliminary class action settlements were filed on Monday in federal court in Minnesota and require a judge’s approval.

Tyson, the largest U.S. meat company, will pay $55 million. Cargill agreed to pay $32.5 million. The proposed accords are the first for consumers in the price-fixing litigation, which began in 2019.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have estimated there are about 36 million potential class members in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

Tyson, based in Arkansas, and Minnesota-based Cargill agreed to cooperate with the consumers as they pursue price-fixing claims against the remaining defendants, JBS USA and National Beef Packing.

Tyson and Cargill did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and neither did JBS and National Beef. The defendants have all denied any wrongdoing.

Lead attorneys for the consumers on Monday declined to comment.

Eligible class members are individuals who indirectly purchased beef products — such as chuck, loin and ribs — between August 2014 and December 2019 from stores such as Walmart and Costco. The retailers are not named as defendants.

An expert for the plaintiffs said he estimates total damages to the consumer class at $1.9 billion.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers said they have spent tens of thousands of hours pursuing the lawsuit. They said they will ask the court to award them up to 33.3 per cent of the settlement, or $29 million, in legal fees.

Tyson last week agreed to pay $85 million to settle a lawsuit by consumers who accused it of conspiring with rivals to inflate pork prices. Tyson denied wrongdoing in that case.

Earlier this year, JBS reached a $83.5 million settlement resolving price-fixing claims from ranchers and other plaintiffs, but not consumers. JBS has denied any wrongdoing.

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The German pharmaceutical and biotechnology group said that, on a currency-adjusted basis, it now anticipates annual sales of 46 billion euros to 48 billion euros (C$73.3 to C$76.5 billion), an increase of 1 billion euros at both ends from its prior forecast.

Why it matters: Roundup and glyphosate-based herbicides are key crop protection products for Canadian farmers.

Bayer, which is grappling with costly U.S. product liability litigation, has already paid about US$10 billion to settle disputed claims that Roundup, based on glyphosate, causes cancer.

Plaintiffs have said they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other forms of cancer due to using Roundup, either at home or on the job. The company has since replaced glyphosate in U.S. consumer products with different weed-killing substances.

U.S. and Canadian health agencies have approved glyphosate for safe use.

On Thursday, Bayer announced a significant settlement with a plaintiffs’ law firm, reducing unresolved glyphosate claims to 61,000. Of the total 192,000 claims, 131,000 have been settled or deemed ineligible, Bayer said.

Bayer forecast 2025 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for one-off items, to range between 9.7 billion euros and 10.2 billion euros.

The group also reported preliminary second-quarter sales of about 10.7 billion euros and group EBITDA before special items of about 2.1 billion euros.

Bayer will report its April-June earnings on August 6.

— Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru

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Bayer, which produces the herbicide, said it acknowledged the court’s decision, “which did not find the company liable”.

Why it matters: Bayer has said it could pull glyphosate herbicide Roundup from the U.S. market if authorities strengthen product liability protections. The company has paid some US$10 billion in lawsuit settlements.

Lawyers for the Grataloup family said: “It is clearly a big disappointment for the Grataloup family and for us … The case deserves to be submitted to the appeals court.”

The lawsuit was one of the first high-profile cases centring specifically on prenatal exposure to glyphosate and congenital malformations in a child.

Research has suggested prenatal exposure to glyphosate may affect babies’ health at birth, but successful lawsuits have been rare. Bayer has said the product is safe for human use.

The German pharmaceutical and biotechnology group has paid around $10 billion to settle disputed claims in the United States that its weedkiller Roundup, based on glyphosate, causes cancer.

The European Union last renewed the approval of the use of glyphosate in 2023, through December 2033. The U.S. and Canada have both approved glyphosate for safe use.

— Reporting by Makini Brice

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