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dalton99a

(81,485 posts) Mon Dec 16, 2019, 08:05 PM Dec 2019

Sackler family moved $10.7 billion from company to family-controlled trusts (NYT)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/health/sacklers-purdue-payments-opioids-.html

Purdue Pharma’s Payments to Sacklers Soared Amid Opioid Crisis
A new audit finds that the family directed $10.7 billion from the drugmaker to family-controlled trusts and holding companies, as legal pressure tightened around Purdue.
By Jan Hoffman and Danny Hakim
Dec. 16, 2019 Updated 6:42 p.m. ET

As scrutiny of Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid epidemic intensified during the past dozen years, its owners, members of the Sackler family, withdrew more than $10 billion from the company, distributing it among trusts and overseas holding companies, according to a new audit commissioned by Purdue.

The amount is more than eight times what the family took out of the company in the 13 years after OxyContin, its signature product, was approved in 1995. The audit is likely to renew questions about how much the Sacklers should pay to resolve more than 2,800 lawsuits that seek to hold Purdue accountable for the opioid crisis.

The family has offered to contribute at least $3 billion in cash as part of a settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments against Purdue. But 24 states, led by Massachusetts and New York, have refused to sign onto the agreement, arguing that the Sacklers should pay more.

The new report, a 350-page forensic accounting prepared by Alix Partners, a consulting firm that Purdue has hired to help guide the company through Chapter 11 restructuring, was filed in bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., Monday evening.

Ultimately, it does not answer a key question for investigators — how much the Sacklers are actually worth and where their money is located.