Purdue Pharma and Sacklers reach new $7.4bn settlement over opioids crisis
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Settlement resolves thousands of lawsuits alleging Oxycontin caused addiction crisis. Members of the family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma agreed to pay up to $7.4bn in a new settlement to lawsuits over the toll of the powerful prescription painkiller, the New York Aattorney Ggeneral, Letitia James, announced Thursday.
The deal, agreed to by Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family members who own the company and lawyers representing state and local governments and thousands of victims of the opioid crisis, represents an increase of more than $1bn over a previous settlement deal that was rejected last year by the US supreme court.
It’s among the largest settlements reached over the past several years in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for a deadly epidemic. Aside from the Purdue deal, others worth about $50bn have been announced – and most of the money is required to be used to stem the crisis.
The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out. Under the new proposal, members of the Sackler family who own Purdue would contribute up to $7.4bn over 15 years and give up ownership of Purdue, which would become a new entity with its board appointed by states and others who sued the company. A portion of the money is also to go to victims of the opioid crisis or their survivors.
The family’s contribution will be higher than the $6bn agreed to under the previous version. The supreme court blocked the agreement last year because it protected members of the wealthy family from civil lawsuits over OxyContin – even though the family members themselves were not in bankruptcy. The new agreement protects family members from lawsuits only from entities that agree to the settlement.
