The deal will resolve about 90% of the 39,000 lawsuits consolidated in courts in California and Pennsylvania, Bayer said Thursday in a
Legal bills are piling up at Bayer. The Leverkusen, Germany-based company announced a $12.1 billion plan in June to settle lawsuits products it inherited with the $63 billion takeover of
Investors have punished Bayer for its legal troubles. The shares are down by more than a third since the Monsanto acquisition closed in June 2018. Chief Executive Officer
The shares rose 0.5% early Friday in Frankfurt.
The Essure settlement was largely expected after Bayer
Bayer sought a deal on the Essure claims to remove the “distractions and uncertainties associated with this litigation,” according to its statement. The company said the settlement didn’t amount to an admission of wrongdoing or liability.
The settlement “would provide expedited relief to thousands of women,” Fitzpatrick, a partner in the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina-based
Thousands of women
The judge unsealed the files, which included some Conceptus and Bayer internal records and emails, at the request of Public Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group backed by plaintiffs’ lawyers. In those filings, Bayer’s experts disputed allegations that its complaint-reporting systems were flawed and said they routinely passed U.S. Food and Drug Administration audits
Safety Warning
In 2016, the FDA ordered Bayer to beef up safety information on Essure’s warning label. Sales fell, and the device maker stopped selling the implant two years later, calling it a “business decision.” At the time, thousands of women had launched a campaign on social media to have regulators order its removal from the market. The group was known as the “E-Sisters.”
The first U.S. trial of Essure claims was set to start in state court in Oakland, California, earlier this year but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic that closed businesses and courts. About 29,000 cases had been consolidated before Judge
In its release, Bayer said Thursday’s settlement only applied to U.S. suits. Lawyers for U.K. women who also got the implants complained their clients have been left out of discussions to resolve the cases.
“Do women in the U.K. not feel the same pain? Have they not endured the same suffering?” Pogust said in a release. “It’s now time for Bayer to be held to account and to compensate the thousands of women in the U.K. who have suffered avoidable pain and suffering.”
The California case is Essure Products Cases, JCCP No. 4887, Superior Court for Alameda County, California (Oakland).
To contact the reporters on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Steve Stroth, Anthony Lin
© 2020 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
To read more articles log in.
Learn more about a Bloomberg Law subscription.