Supreme Court Takes on OxyContin Case Protecting Sackler Family
December 4, 2023A case that would shield the Sackler family from civil lawsuits tied to Purdue Pharma’s distribution of OxyContin topped the Supreme Court’s schedule Monday.
The Sacklers will give up ownership of the pharmaceutical company and pay as much as $6 billion if their nationwide deal with state and local officials is approved, according to the Associated Press. The family would also forfeit ownership of Purdue Pharma, which would dedicate its profits to drug treatment initiatives. Opioids have been tied to 80,000 deaths in the U.S. in recent years.
While their drug company filed for bankruptcy in 2019, the Sacklers have not. That’s the heart of the issue the nation’s highest court is considering.
The settlement was reached in 2022, but put on hold after being challenged by the Biden administration in August. Purdue hoped the Supreme Court would not intervene.
“We are confident in the legality of our nearly universally supported Plan of Reorganization, and optimistic that the Supreme Court will agree,” the company said in a statement. “Even so, we are disappointed that the U.S. Trustee, despite having no concrete interest in the outcome of this process, has been able to single-handedly delay billions of dollars in value that should be put to use for victim compensation, opioid crisis abatement for communities across the country, and overdose rescue medicines.”
The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee, which is represented by the Justice Department, doesn’t believe the third-party release settlement should protect the Sacklers. The Trump administration approved of the proposed agreement.
Some families who lost loved ones to opioid abuse oppose separating the Sackler’s fortunes from those of its Connecticut-based company. Victims would be awarded $3,500 to $48,000.
Critics of the agreement being considered Monday worry that separating the Sackler’s from the liability of their company sets a bad precedent. The family collected more than $10 billion from Purdue in the decade preceding the company’s efforts to reorganize.
The majority of OxyContin, which hit the drug market in 1996, is distributed as a generic, but was heavily marketed by Purdue.
With News Wire Services