That's not the settlement. The settlement is that purdue pays 8+ bn and shuts down, but the sacklers are immune personally. The supreme court threw out that deal saying that the sacklers can't be given immunity as a part of the deal.
I think there's a misunderstanding in what the settlement is about. As part of Purdue's bankruptcy, the Sackler family is voluntarily providing 6 billion dollars to help settle claims opioid victims have brought against Purdue Pharma.
As a condition to provide the 6 billion dollars, the Sackler family has asked the bankruptcy judge to not even allow any new suits against the Sacklers related to the Opioid epidemic. This is something bankruptcy courts do regular for the company Purdue Pharma, but it is irregular when it comes to the Sackler family (this is not the entity going bankrupt!)
This is the issue that went up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the protection given to the Sackler family is not something that can be given by a bankruptcy judge during the bankruptcy of Purdue Pharma.
Settling for almost twice their net annual income (and similarly large lawsuits against Dupont's subsidiaries) does not strike me as the government not touching them.
This is certainly a better result than the Purdue opioid lawsuit where the Sackler family received immunity and in exchange for a $6B settlement.
The company, of which they likely will not retain control, is settling for ~8billion.
Importantly, the company itself DOES NOT HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY. It is expected to pay it off over time, assuming it remains solvent.
The Sacklers, on the other hand, have drained nearly 10 billion dollars from the company account into their personal estate, and are retaining all but 225 million of it.
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My hot take - They can keep the fucking money, let them buy as much ramen from the prison commissary as they'd like.
Well, it is. The victims had a settlement agreement worth billions of dollars, which the Sackler family was going to willingly provide in exchange for legal protections.
Now that legal protections are off the table, it is very unlikely that any new settlement will be as generous, and in fact quite unlikely that any settlement will be achieved at all.
This is not true, the Sackler families have already put up $4 billion dollars of their own money as part of one settlement in this and they're still being sued by others not part of the settlement. There's also a criminal investigation into members of the Sackler family.
Prosecutors in the US are given leeway to make deals under the law that benefit the people. I am not sure of the details, but it often happens that companies indemnify executives (i.e. promise to pay legal expenses incurred defending behavior associated with working at the company). That means that suing the Sackler heirs (especially if unsuccessful) might diminish the funds available to recover from Purdue, since Purdue would be paying the Sackler legal fees. If the prosecutors believe that probability of a successful suit against the Sacklers is low enough, they may do an expected value calculation where they value the private contributions of funds from the Sacklers under the settlement more highly than what they expect to recover in the event of a lawsuit against the Sacklers.
It’s pretty wild that everyone acknowledges that the Sacklers engaged in a “milking program” going from 15% to 70% distributions after the first lawsuits in order to strip the company of assets and then hide behind the company to shield liability. This alone should allow claimants to pierce the corporate veil and go after the family directly.
Considering Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family has so far had to pay out $10.5 billion (estimates of their net worth including those settlements have it dropping $8b during this time period) and despite trying quite hard have not managed to gain legal immunity or protection regarding civil and criminal liability. That means they'll very likely be hit with more lawsuits going forward and possibly even criminal charges.
Looking at it, I think thats pretty good and hope the possibility for future lawsuits means they continue to pay, but knowing that case is an unusual outlier and that none of the other people involved like the CEO or other executives have had any consequences makes it feel a little underwhelming.
I'm glad government is going after bad companies more and I hope they continue, but it does seem like our legal system is just not equipped to correctly hold people responsible in these cases.
The judge ruled the bankruptcy court exceeded its authority by attempting to shield the Sacklers from litigation when they themselves had not filed for bankruptcy protection. According to the article this can happen in “unique” situations. So this isn’t about the merits or fairness of the settlement, merely the technical authority.
The Sacklers were I guess contributing $4.5B for this liability shield? IANAL so genuinely curious: wouldn’t the thousands of cases be rolled up into a few class action lawsuits so $4.5B could be viewed as a settlement of those suits?
Don’t get me wrong: the Sacklers are disgusting people who contributed to the opioid crisis. Can a link be established that meets the relevant legal threshold for liability? Again, genuinely curious.
The settlement will give 3-5K per employee. Hardly anything. I wonder why they settled, instead of going ahead with the trial. I'm totally unsympathetic with these companies, and now they are just getting away literally free.
> According to spokesmen, two branches of the Sackler family noted that the settlement included no finding of liability or wrongdoing.
And no more lawsuits
> If Judge Robert Drain, who is presiding over the bankruptcy proceedings, certifies the plan after an August hearing, as is now widely expected, both the family and the company would be shielded from further opioid-related lawsuits.
Negative outcome. Some important points that the article here did not emphasize:
1) The Sackler family was not actually a party to this litigation. They came to the table (with most of the settlement money) specifically to get these so called '3rd party releases'.
2) Purdue is basically broke. It's also an LLC. Thus, in order to go after the Sackler family's money, you basically have to claw back money that Purdue paid out to the family over the years. It's not impossible to do, but it requires a whole more litigation, the outcome of which is not at all certain.
Now, 3rd party releases are a genuinely weird thing: a court ruling that a party that's not directly involved in the case is immune from future lawsuits. Partially the reason it went all the way to the supreme court is that there was a circuit split - they were allowed in some circuits, but not others. However, (and this is according to a friend who represented the victims in the settlement), it's really unfortunate that THIS is the case where they get struck down. If the Sacklers walk away from the settlement, it makes the victims getting their payout much less certain, and certainly delays that payout by many years.
I think this is where the settlement went wrong. The Sacklers were going to remain billionaires after the $6B payout. In all real respects they were going to feel no pain. They already have way more money than any of them could hope to spend in their remaining years, and that really rubbed people the wrong way. With the immunity removed they will at least spend some of their retirement in court room after court room instead of sipping drinks on the deck of one of their many megayachts.
It sucks for the victims who are realistically not going to get any help before they die, but it does send a message that you can't kill thousands (probably millions) and get off scot free.
Well, under this ruling they don't have to. But the victims didn't sign off on this, they are perfectly entitled to sue for whatever they think they deserve. (Though if they intend to do so they should absolutely not accept the money they try to give them as a result of this deal, as that will make their case that much harder to win)
"The deal grants "releases" from liability for harm caused by OxyContin and other opioids to the Sacklers, hundreds of their associates, as well as their remaining empire of companies and trusts.
In return, they have agreed to pay roughly $4.3 billion, while also forfeiting ownership of Purdue Pharma."
They pay $4.3B and lose their empire. More lawsuits would be for.. what purpose exactly? Put them behind bars? Who does that benefit exactly? Just some sort of vengeance?
If a company voluntarily enters into a settlement, it's because they think they're saving money somewhere else.
In this case the Sacklers are granted immunity to all future lawsuits.
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