Bayer, trying to contain billions of dollars in legal costs, has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court verdict that upheld damages to a customer blaming his cancer on the German group's glyphosate-based weedkillers, according to Reuters.

Bayer AG has asked California's Supreme Court to review a decision awarding $20.5 million to a groundskeeper who claimed the company's Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer, arguing the ruling was at odds with federal law and settled legal principles.

Delay caused by concerns over Bayer’s plan to create an independent panel of scientific experts to help assess whether glyphosate-based weedkillers such as Roundup caused cancer.

Bayer announced a series of agreements that will substantially resolve major outstanding Monsanto litigation, including cases involving U.S. Roundup product liability, dicamba drift and PCB water issues, bringing closure to approximately 75% of the current Roundup litigation involving approximately 125,000 filed and unfiled claims.

The board of directors of the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) issued a statement supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) science-based approach to evaluating glyphosate — a herbicide that has been the focus of recent lawsuits by those concerned that it may be carcinogenic.

With word that Austria will enact a ban on glyphosate, the bad news continues to mount for Bayer, the maker of Roundup, which contains the widely disputed chemical.