Pressure on Bayer for a deal intensified last year after thousands of complaints multiplied and investors expressed greater dissatisfaction with the company`s legal approach. At a hearing on Thursday, the district court judge in Vince Chhabria questioned the agreement reached in June, after lawyers representing some of the consumers accused the company of failing to reach the $11 billion (9.3 billion euro) deal. Bayer AG`s $10.9 billion deal to settle security disputes over its Roundup weedkiller is stalled, as lawyers for the plaintiffs announced in court on Thursday. The judge expressed doubts as to whether Bayer had manipulated the transaction process since its announcement. “We are absolutely convinced,” Baumann said in an interview Wednesday. There is money set aside for existing applicants outside the agreement, he said, and a structure to deal with future plaintiffs who might emerge. The coronavirus outbreak, which has closed courts across the country, may have prompted the plaintiffs and the company to reach an agreement. Bayer has accepted thousands of legal comparisons on Monsanto`s demon player, Roundup, after a federal judge raised questions about a deal that was tied to $US10.9 billion and failed to settle all disputes, as a court announced Thursday. In August, Bayer`s stock fell 3% after saying there were bumps in discussions to seal the $11 billion settlement of roundup cases, and the judge who oversaw the case, Vince Chhabria, threatened to resume litigation.

In letters filed late Monday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, three lawyers said they had made binding comparisons. Letters from Brent Wisner, Jennifer Moore and Aimee Wagstaff that took the cases to court did not reveal terms of transaction. Judge Chhabria instructed Mr. Feinberg to negotiate an agreement that would encompass all cases, including thousands of others, that have been filed in state and other courts. In a suggested Amicus letter, 12 attorneys general, including 10, who were part of a $113 million comparison with Apple last month, criticized the $87.7 million in legal fees in a class action deal on old iPhones. “We suggested last week that we are accelerating efforts to conclude and implement current comparisons, and our progress is consistent with our commitment to pursue a holistic solution to the Roundup process,” Bayer said in a statement. The comparison is estimated at 95,000 cases and includes $1.25 billion for potential future applications from Roundup clients who may develop the form of cancer known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “It`s rare that we see a consensual settlement with so many zeroes,” says Nora Freeman Engstrom, a professor at Stanford Law School.