By Dietrich Knauth

May 12 (Reuters) - Class action lawyers are seeking $675 million for their role in negotiating a $7.25 billion proposal to settle current and future lawsuits alleging that Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer.

The settlement, proposed in February, seeks to resolve nearly all the Roundup lawsuits in the U.S. through a new class action filed in Missouri state court. Judge Timothy Boyer granted preliminary approval in March and is set to consider final approval of the deal in early July.

The German drugmaking and crop science company is facing approximately 65,000 claims in U.S. state and federal courts from plaintiffs who have said they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other forms of cancer after using Roundup at home or on the job. Bayer, which acquired Roundup when it purchased Monsanto in 2018, has said that decades of studies have shown Roundup's key ingredient glyphosatemm is safe, and does not cause cancer.

Six law firms that negotiated the deal on behalf of plaintiffs said in a Thursday court filing that $675 million was a reasonable payment for their work. The class action lawyers say the settlement guarantees recovery to thousands of people who used Roundup and developed — or will develop — cancer, and that their fee was "modest" and "deliberately restrained," given that courts often approve attorneys' fees of 33% or more of a settlement’s total value.

The settlement avoids delays and risks associated with litigating in court, as well as the risk that large jury verdicts could tip Bayer's Monsanto unit into bankruptcy and leave nothing for future claimants, according to the filing.

The law firms that are seeking payment in the class action are The Holland Law Firm; Ketchmark & McCreight; Seeger Weiss; Motley Rice; Williams Hart & Boundas; and Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel. The fee request did not specify how the money would be divided among the lawyers or firms who worked on the deal, saying that more details would be disclosed in future court documents.

Bayer is looking for a finality in the settlement, and it has said it needs to get buy-in from nearly all of the current plaintiffs before proceeding with the deal. The deadline for opting out of the settlement is June 4, and it is not yet clear what percentage of plaintiffs will take the deal.

Many law firms with large numbers of Roundup clients have signaled support for the settlement, but others, including attorneys who represent clients in federal court, have opposed it.

The judge overseeing Roundup cases that have been consolidated in federal court criticized the settlement, saying he did not think the Missouri state court had the power to impose the settlement’s terms on people who do not currently have cancer but wish to sue in the future.

Bayer unit ​Monsanto said in a statement that it looks forward to finalizing the settlement, but it did not answer questions about the size of the class action lawyers’ fee request.

Bayer has ​continued to be dogged by Roundup lawsuits after paying about $10 billion in 2020 to settle most of the Roundup lawsuits then pending.

The case is King v. Monsanto, City of St. Louis Circuit Court, No. 2622-CC00325

Read more:

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Federal judge criticizes proposed $7.25 billion Roundup settlement

Bayer's $7.25 billion Roundup settlement gets initial OK from Missouri judge