(Washington) The American Supreme Court faced a serious dilemma on Monday: to approve or annul a billion-dollar compensation agreement by the Purdue laboratory for victims of the opioid crisis, but which exonerates the Sackler family from any future lawsuit from victims.
The Department of Justice criticizes this agreement, concluded in 2022 with the 50 American states and validated by a federal appeals court, of protecting the Sackler family, historical owner of the laboratory, from any future prosecution, including victims who do not did not consent to it.
The Sacklers are accused of having aggressively promoted their pain medication OxyContin for years while being aware of its highly addictive nature. The sale of this product brought them tens of billions of dollars.
The overprescription of this opiate is generally considered to be the trigger of the crisis which has claimed more than half a million victims in 20 years in the United States.
Targeted by an avalanche of lawsuits, the Purdue laboratory declared bankruptcy in 2019 and has since negotiated a plan, the latest version of which provides for its closure by 2024 in the United States for the benefit of a new entity and the payment of at least $5.5 billion over 18 years.
PHOTO JULIA NIKHINSON, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Demonstration in front of the United States Supreme Court on December 4 in Washington
” Without anything ”
The nine judges, who suspended this agreement in August at the request of the government, showed themselves to be unusually torn, balancing between the risk of compromising victims’ compensation, and that of recognizing a court in a bankruptcy case’s right to immunize the Sacklers from future prosecution.
If the Justice Department’s bankruptcy trustee, who is challenging the deal, “wins his case, the billions of dollars earmarked for opioid prevention and compensation will evaporate and creditors and victims will be left with nothing.” , argued the laboratory’s lawyer, Gregory Garre.
His colleague representing the victims who signed the agreement, Pratik Shah, also considered it “irresponsible for the bankruptcy trustee to suggest that there is some sort of secret alternative to obtain compensation”, affirming that “without the “exemption, the plan will disintegrate.”
“We are saying that there are other opioid victims who have also suffered tragic harm who say they do not consent to having their rights forcibly extinguished,” replied government lawyer Curtis Gannon.
Billions “siphoned off” by the Sacklers
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, noting the “overwhelming” support of more than 95% of creditors for the agreement, criticized the government for minimizing the “uncertainties” in the event of rejection.
His colleague Ketanji Brown Jackson nevertheless noted that this situation resulted from the family’s desire to obtain this exemption.
“That’s only because the Sacklers put the money overseas, right?” “, she stressed. “This condition is necessary because the Sacklers took the money and refuse to return it until they obtain this condition.”
“Members of the Sackler family did not declare themselves bankrupt and only made a fraction of their assets available for the liquidation of Purdue,” recalled Curtis Gannon.
The Justice Department said the Sacklers “siphoned off” some $11 billion from the company in the years before it declared bankruptcy in 2019.