Purdue Pharma's Payments to Sacklers Soared Amid Opioid Crisis
Source: New York Times
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. But the report does detail checks and disbursements that Purdue made to the family in the years after the company’s guilty plea in 2007 to federal charges that it deceptively marketed OxyContin as nonaddictive. It could be used to support allegations as to whether the Sacklers intentionally withdrew large annual sums to shield the money from litigation as legal pressures mounted.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/health/sacklers-purdue-payments-opioids-.html
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