Recently, Bayer,
a pharmaceuticals and chemicals behemoth, agreed to pay $10 billion to settle with
thousands of claimants who had filed in court against the role of Roundup (a
weedkiller product of the company) in inducing cancer. One would believe that
if a company is shelling out such a huge sum, it reflects an obvious admission
of the claims. But the company has maintained that the product is safe and
better than alternatives.
The only reasons behind the settlement seem to be that the company wishes to do away with the negative publicity and the battering the stock price has taken. Purely transactional, one might say.
