Bayer AG is weighing whether to use a controversial legal maneuver known as the Texas Two-Step to try to resolve tens of thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, Bloomberg News reported. Faced with a recent string of costly jury verdicts over the herbicide, Bayer executives are consulting with law firms and advisers about how to prompt a bankruptcy judge to halt further trials scheduled for this year. The object is to wrangle a settlement of more than 50,000 cases. Bayer is looking for breathing room after it was hammered over the last four months with Roundup jury verdicts totaling about $4 billion. While the company has won more recent trials than it has lost, its latest courtroom defeat was its biggest yet, with a Pennsylvania jury awarding $2.25 billion to a man who blamed his cancer on long-term exposure to Roundup. Bayer maintains the product is safe. “Given the recent rulings on Texas Two-Step bankruptcies, I’m pretty sure Bayer knows this is a long-shot bid for a settlement,” said Prof. Bruce Markell, a former federal bankruptcy judge who now teaches law at Northwestern University. “But they may feel like they don’t have any other choice.”
