PCB Deal Yields $98 Million in Fees for Cities’ Attorneys (1)

Attorneys for more than 2,500 cities and counties will receive nearly $98 million in fees after a federal judge granted final approval of a $648 million settlement over environmental contamination.

The municipalities claimed they were harmed by the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls in local waterways which cities say could affect the health of the environment and local residents, according to the court’s Nov. 19 order. PCBs were banned in the U.S. in 1979 after researchers found they posed a cancer threat.

The settlement resolves a major legal headache for Bayer, the German conglomerate that acquired Monsanto in 2018 for ...