German drug and pesticide company Bayer has agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle thousands of US lawsuits over claims that its widely used weedkiller Roundup caused cancer.
It comes after a year of talks that have led to the firm's share price plummeting.
Bayer has settled terms with 75 per cent of the 125,000 claims, it said on Wednesday.
It inherited the legal claims after its $63bn (Dh231.4bn) takeover of Monsanto in 2018.
The settled cases over Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers account for about 95 per cent of those set for trial, it said.
"The Roundup settlement is the right action at the right time for Bayer to bring a long period of uncertainty to an end," said its chief executive, Werner Baumann.
The company said it would make a payment of between $8.8bn and $9.6bn to resolve the Roundup litigation, including an allowance expected to cover unresolved claims, and $1.25bn to support a separate class agreement to address any future litigation.
The company, whose management in April regained shareholder support for its handling of the litigation process, has denied claims that Roundup or its active ingredient glyphosate causes cancer.
It said decades of independent studies have shown the product is safe for human use.
Monsanto began selling Roundup in 1974, and while the formulation is no longer patent-protected, Roundup remains widely available.
Bayer has repeatedly said the product is safe and important to farmers who use it in combination with the company's genetically modified seeds.
