Bayer’s $63 billion acquisition of US agribusiness giant Monsanto last year is turning into a nightmare of unexpected dimension for the German group’s image and its share price, though management remains convinced that the takeover was a good move.

In the second phase of a two-phase trial over the carcinogenic potential of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide and the producer’s responsibility for its safety, a San Francisco federal jury on Mar. 27, awarded damages of $80 million to a California hobby gardener who blames his non-Hodgkin lymphoma on his decades-long use of Roundup.

The jury agreed with plaintiff Edwin Hardeman that Monsanto had failed to adequately warn about the toxic potential of the herbicide. The award encompasses compensatory damages of $5.27 million and punitive damages of $75 million.

On news of the double setback in the first case to be heard by a US federal court, Bayer’s share price slipped by a further 1.3%. It had already plunged by nearly 10% earlier this month after the same jury determined that Roundup was a “substantial factor” contributing to Hardeman’s cancer.

Reports from the stock market said the share traded at a seven-year low on Mar. 28, leaving the former chemical group now focused on life sciences exposed to a hostile takeover. One US analyst even went as far as to predict that Bayer, to avoid being taken over, would be compelled to merge with German chemical giant BASF.

Discussions over a merger of Germany’s two largest banks may be lending new credibility to the unlikely Bayer-BASF scenario that has surfaced repeatedly in past decades and has been generally disregarded in the industry. The idea would seem even more unlikely today, as Bayer has shed all its chemical businesses and even divested a large chunk of its agrochemicals assets to BASF in exchange for regulatory approval of the Monsanto deal.

In a statement, Bayer said it was "disappointed with the jury's decision.” At the same time, however, it said that the verdict “does not change the weight of over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide that support the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides.”

CEO Werner Baumann asserted in television interviews that Bayer will continue to “vigorously defend” the former Monsanto’s flagship product as it believes the herbicide to be safe.

In contrast to opinions voiced by some US legal experts, Bayer said it does not believe the Hardeman verdict will impact the more than 11,000 similar cases still pending at the US federal or state level. All of the lawsuits charge that the Monsanto herbicide caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in the US state of Virginia, told news network CNN the Hardeman trial is a bellwether that “provides a roadmap for all those other cases." It also shows, he said, that a California state jury’s award of $289 million to a former school groundskeeper last year "wasn't a one-off." A judge later reduced the payout to $78 million.

According to data compiled by the Bloomberg news agency, the $80 million awarded to Hardeman is the third-largest US product liability jury award so far this year.

In the next case, to be heard by a California state court in a single phase, observers note that Bayer won’t have the advantage it had in the federal court, where Judge Vince Chhabria granted its request to split the trial into two parts.

The split required the jury to establish – after reviewing scientific evidence – whether glyphosate caused Hardeman’s cancer before deciding on damages in a second phase. This unusual procedure led Monsanto critics to charge that the court was handing the victory to the herbicide producer. Bayer nevertheless failed to benefit.

In phase one, attorneys for the plaintiff were not allowed to discuss claims that Monsanto suppressed negative studies and worked to promote or “ghost write” favorable studies about the herbicide. In the next trial there will be no such restrictions.