Monsanto to Pay $21.5 M Over Misleading Roundup Labeling

Monsanto to Pay $21.5 M Over Misleading Roundup Labeling

Introduction

Agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto was ordered by a Missouri Federal Court to pay $21.5 million as the settlement amount to a class of consumers who filed a lawsuit against its weed killer Roundup. The verdict was given out by U.S District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig, who appreciated the consumers' counsel for bringing “a case with little precedent" to such a strong conclusion.

The manufacturer is blamed for failing to warn people about the side-effects of Roundup through the product label warnings and is facing allegations of purposely concealing the risk of developing Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma(NHL) when exposed to the weed killer.

More than 2,200 lawsuits are pending in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, which are consolidated as a multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2741 in Re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation) under Judge Vince Chhabria. The first trial in the Roundup litigation has been scheduled for June 18, 2018, in the Superior Court for the County of San Francisco.