FRANKFURT -- Shares in German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer tumbled in morning trade Tuesday after a US court confirmed a previous cancer damages ruling against subsidiary Monsanto over its herbicide Roundup.
Shares in the Leverkusen-based group lost 7.1 percent by 0830 GMT in Frankfurt (4:30 p.m. in Manila), against a DAX index of blue-chip German shares down 2.1 percent.
Investors were responding to fears that a wave of costly litigation could be about to break on the firm.
Late Monday, a US judge slashed more than $200 million off a damages award against Monsanto, which Bayer bought in June in one of Germany's biggest-ever corporate takeovers.
But the ruling upheld the jury's finding in a lower court that Monsanto should have warned a user about cancer risks from Roundup and confirmed some $78 million in damages.
Roundup contains glyphosate, a chemical campaigners and politicians in the US and Europe argue causes cancer, although Bayer points to scientific studies finding no connection.
With around 8,000 similar cases outstanding in America, financial players now fear similar rulings could end up costing the company billions.
Monday's case was Bayer and Monsanto's first attempt at reversing the judgement in favor of terminally ill school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who was diagnosed with blood cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014.
He won his suit in August against Monsanto, with jurors finding that the company acted with "malice" and that Roundup and professional grade RangerPro contributed "substantially" to his terminal illness.
In a statement, Bayer hailed the reduction in damages as "a step in the right direction".
"But we continue to believe that the liability verdict and damage awards are not supported by the evidence at trial or the law and plan to file an appeal," the group added.
Betting on the future need for industrial agriculture to feed a growing world population, Bayer spent some $63 billion to acquire Monsanto, shedding much of its existing agrichemical business worth 7.6 billion euros ($8.7 billion) to German rival BASF to get the deal approved by EU anti-trust regulators.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
