The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a settlement and bankruptcy reorganization involving opioid maker Purdue Pharma was deemed inappropriate due to the inclusion of legal protections for the Sackler family, who are the owners of the company.
The court decided that the legal shield provided by bankruptcy should not extend to the Sackler family and should only apply to Purdue Pharma. The Sackler family had not filed for bankruptcy themselves at the time, as reported by the AP.
A family of victims expressed their approval of the decision.
“This ruling is significant because if it had gone the other way, the Department of Justice does not typically prosecute white-collar criminals, they just impose fines. Any criminal organization could use bankruptcy as a shield and request third-party releases, like the Sacklers were attempting to do,” said Ed Bisch, the father of a victim who lost his life to an opioid overdose, in an interview with Scripps News.
Supreme Court
Supreme Court rejects a nationwide opioid settlement with OxyContin maker
8:23 AM, Jun 27, 2024
After deliberating for six months, the Justices voted 5-4 to block the agreement that had been reached by state and local governments, as well as victims, as reported by the Associated Press.
“The very first time I heard the word Oxycontin, my 18-year-old son was found dead in his bed from it,” Bisch shared with Scripps News. “That was in 2001. No one was aware of the dangers of Oxycontin back then. That same night, my family and I started informing high schools in Philadelphia because there was a lack of knowledge about Oxycontin. That was February.”
“In August of 2001, I attended the first Congressional hearing on Oxycontin deaths,” Bisch continued. “It wasn’t until 2007 that Purdue Pharma was brought to justice… What we didn’t know in 2007 was there was a 100-page memo pushing for criminal charges, which the judge never saw.”
The now-rejected settlement would have been one of the largest ever agreed to by a pharmaceutical company and could have allocated billions towards organizations aiding in the fight against the opioid epidemic.