"Opposing teams of attorneys spent hours on Monday battling over a proposed $7.25 billion settlement of the US Roundup cancer litigation that, if approved, would allow Bayer to keep selling its controversial glyphosate weed killers while providing roughly $10,000 to $165,000 for individuals suffering from cancer they blame on Roundup use.
Judge Timothy Boyer of the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis called the lengthy “fairness hearing” to address a litany of complaints raised by a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers who challenged the judge’s preliminary approval of the settlement earlier this year.
The objecting attorneys said the structure of the class action settlement amounts to a collusive arrangement between Bayer and a group of supportive plaintiffs’ attorneys that provides a rich payout of $675 million in fees to the lawyers who put the deal with Bayer together and are helping promote the deal, but provides paltry payments for the cancer sufferers who make up the class.
The settlement would include people currently suing the company and also provide a framework for paying Roundup users who develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in the future."
