US agrochemicals company Albaugh has acquired DuPont spinoff Corteva Agriscience’s straight-goods glyphosate business for an undisclosed sum. The deal is for intangible assets only, such as trade names, registrations, regulatory data, formulations, patents and know-how used worldwide, excluding Argentina.
The European Commission has provisionally renewed the license of the herbicide active ingredient glyphosate until the end of 2023. Earlier this year, the EU governing body had asked all member states to approve a one-year extension.
Glyphosate and the former Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup have returned to the headlines following last month’s publication of a 2013-2014 study by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that that found traces of the herbicide’s active ingredient in the majority of urine samples collected.
After months of anticipation, the US Supreme Court has deflated Bayer’s hopes that the court’s conservative majority would vote to hear its appeal to overturn a $25 million appeals court verdict in favor of Edwin Hardeman.
Bayer has won its fourth consecutive appeal of a US court case previously decided in favor of a plaintiff who claimed that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The agrochemicals market has seen intermittent supply shortages for key herbicide ingredients for several months, and a herbicide shortfall had been predicted for the current crop growing season. With glitches following glitches, reports of a worsening market accelerated at the end of last week, when Bayer CropScience declared force majeure for glyphosate and glyphosate-based products.
New wide-sweeping restrictions on the use of glyphosate, active ingredient in herbicides such as the Monsanto-developed Roundup and the subject of thousands of lawsuits still dogging Bayer, will take hold in Germany at the end of July or beginning of August, the agriculture ministry said.
A Mexican court has reversed a ruling that favored Bayer in a legal challenge brought by the German pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals group against Mexico’s plan to ban glyphosate. In a statement, the country’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources said the Collegiate Court had revoked the provisional suspension of plans to prohibit use of the chemical, of which Bayer is a leading producer.
