Purdue Pharma asked a bankruptcy judge at the end of Tuesday to consider the latest version of her plan to arrange thousands of lawsuits during the toll of the powerfully prescribed painkiller Oxycontin, a deal that would have members of the Sackler family who own the company, pay up to $ 7 billion.
The application is a milestone in a tumultuous legal saga that has continued for more than five years.
According to the deal, the family members – estimated in documents from 2020 and 2021 to be worth around $ 11 billion – would give up the ownership of the company in addition to contributing money for 15 years with the largest payment in advance.
Family members resigned from the Purdue board, stopped receiving money from the company and stopped other involvement before it applied for bankruptcy protection in 2019, because it was confronted with lawsuits of thousands of national and local authorities, plus others.
The new entity would be run by a administration appointed by the national governments, and its mission will be to reduce the opioid crisis that is linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US since Oxycontin came on the market in 1996. Illegal versions of Fentanyl.
This settlement plan was hammered in months of mediation in which groups were involved that Purdue suggested, and almost all support it, according to mediator reports that have been submitted in court.
Approval would take at least a few months.
An earlier version had approval of the bankruptcy, but was rejected last year by the US Supreme Court because it protected members of the Sackler family against civil lawsuits, although none of them registered bankruptcy protection.
Under the new version, claimants will have to choose to get full shares of the settlement. If they don’t, they can still sue Sackler family members who agreed to place around $ 1 billion more than under previous plans. The cash contribution of the Sackklers would partially depend on how many parties join the settlement and the sale of foreign pharmaceutical companies. Part of the money they put in the settlement must be reserved to pay a judgment if they are charged and lose; But if that does not happen, it is to be in the main scheme.
Members of the family have been cast like villain and have removed their name Art galleries and universities All over the world because of their role in the private company. They continue to deny some misconduct.
Other drug makers, distribution companies, pharmacy chains and others have already reached opioid lawsuits worth around $ 50 billion according to a corresponding press differences. Purdue’s, which would also include around $ 900 million from business baskets, would be to the largest if it was completed.
The deals require Most of the money be used to it Fight the opioid crisis.
Purdue’s is the only large one who also offers money for victims – potentially more than $ 850 million in total in Polish for people who are addicted, their families and babies born in withdrawal. That figure is more than in the previous incarnation.
The deadline to request some of those funds that were accepted years ago. In previous versions, individuals were expected to get between around $ 3,500 and $ 48,000. Families were split About the deal.
Purdue would also provide millions of documents to a repository that would make them public. The company has also produced a cheap version of Naloxon, a medicine that reverses overdoses.
– Geoff Mulvihill