A US jury has sentenced Bayer subsidiary Monsanto to pay $165 million to employees at a school northeast of Seattle.
A jury in Washington state found the company liable for selling products containing PCBs that were used at the Sky Valley Education Center in the city of Monroe, Washington. According to the jury, the products were unsafe and did not contain adequate warnings. The six teachers and a janitor had claimed that the chemical PCB, manufactured by Monsanto, had given them cancer, brain damage and other health problems. Monsanto had produced PCBs until 1977.
The jury’s decision is the latest defeat for the company, which now faces nearly $870 million in verdicts over alleged PCB contamination at the Sky Valley Education Center, according to a plaintiffs’ attorney. Monsanto wants to appeal the verdict. Blood, air and other tests showed that the employees were not exposed to unsafe levels of PCBs at school, the Bayer subsidiary said. PCB had been used in a variety of ways, such as floor cleaners and paint. The US government banned the substance in 1979 after it was classified as suspected of causing cancer.
This is how Bayer shares react
After stabilizing the day before, Bayer shares went into reverse again on Wednesday. Most recently they fell by 3.03 percent to 32.96 euros via XETRA and are therefore in danger of falling below the low at the beginning of the week at 32.60 euros – to their lowest level since 2006.
Traders viewed a media report as slightly negative for the price, according to which the acquired US company Monsanto was sentenced by a US court to pay damages in the three-digit million dollar range. However, the billion-dollar glyphosate defeat in the USA and the termination of a clinical study with a promising drug are still more serious.
Investors continued to sell into any slight stabilization, one trader said. This had already been observed the day before, when the share offering always predominated above 34 euros. As the second weakest share in the DAX behind Siemens Energy, this trend could initially continue towards the end of the year.
Reuters/dpa-AFX
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