French court annuls market approval for Bayer's RoundUp Pro 360

[January 15, 2019]  PARIS (Reuters) - A French court dealt a blow to Bayer's Monsanto division by deciding to cancel the authorization to market a Monsanto product containing glyphosate.

Court filings published on Tuesday showed that a regional French court in Lyon had decided to cancel the market authorization for Monsanto's RoundUp Pro 360.

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto this year for $63 billion, is facing thousands of lawsuits in the U.S. brought by users of glyphosate-based weed killers RoundUp and Ranger Pro, who claim the products caused their cancer.

Bayer, which has cited regulatory rulings that found glyphosate to be safe, is appealing a first U.S. court ruling that awarded $78 million in damages to a school groundskeeper from California.

Officials at France's ANSES food and environment regulatory body had no immediate comment on the matter. Bayer also had no immediate comment.

Glyphosate is now off-patent and marketed worldwide by dozens of other chemical groups including Syngenta and DowDuPont's Corteva Agriscience.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Ludwig Burger)

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