Delaware court dis­miss­es Mer­ck­'s talc li­a­bil­i­ty suit against Bay­er

A chancery court judge in Delaware has sided with Bay­er, dis­miss­ing a case be­tween two phar­ma gi­ants over li­a­bil­i­ties from a 2014 M&A deal.

Delaware chancery court vice chan­cel­lor Nathan Cook signed off on Bay­er’s mo­tion to dis­miss the case Mon­day. The chancery court pre­vi­ous­ly held a hear­ing in De­cem­ber on Bay­er’s mo­tion, the rul­ing said.

This case got its be­gin­nings af­ter Mer­ck and Bay­er en­tered in­to a con­tract for Bay­er to buy Mer­ck’s con­sumer care busi­ness in 2014. The $14 bil­lion deal in­clud­ed the prod­uct lines for Dr. Scholl’s, along with Clar­itin al­ler­gy med­i­cine and Cop­per­tone sun­screen. Mer­ck claimed that as part of its con­tract with Bay­er, Mer­ck would re­main li­able for cer­tain prod­uct claims for on­ly sev­en years — and hand li­a­bil­i­ties over to Bay­er on Oct. 1, 2021.

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