(Washington) The US Supreme Court will examine on Monday the validity of a compensation agreement of some $6 billion exempting the Sackler family, owner of the Purdue laboratory involved in the opioid crisis, from any future lawsuits from victims.
The Department of Justice criticizes this agreement, concluded in 2022 with the 50 American states, local communities and individual victims and validated by a federal appeals court, of protecting the Sackler family from any future prosecution, including victims who did not consent.
The Supreme Court, seized by the government which denounces an “abuse of the bankruptcy system”, suspended this agreement in August and asked the parties to present their arguments to determine whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to validate this type of immunity without the approval of potential future plaintiffs.
PHOTO GEORGE FREY, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Purdue Pharma LP is notably the manufacturer of the painkiller OxyContin.
Targeted by an avalanche of lawsuits, the laboratory declared bankruptcy in 2019 and has since been negotiating 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 minus $5.5 billion over 18 years.
The victims’ lawyers who signed the agreement note that their clients, who “suffered the most from the Sacklers’ actions, made the reasoned choice to support the plan as the only way to obtain” reparation.
The bankruptcy trustee of the Ministry of Justice, who is contesting this agreement, “offers no alternative” to the agreement and without rapid compensation, “even more people will die”, they add.
The Biden administration’s legal advisor, Elizabeth Prelogar, conversely argues in her written arguments that if “supporters of the plan invoke the necessity” of reaching an agreement, “necessity cannot justify seizing what does not belong to them.”
The Sackler family is accused of having aggressively promoted its painkiller OxyContin for years while being aware of its highly addictive nature. The sale of this product brought him tens of billions of dollars in profit.
The overprescription of this opiate is generally considered to be the trigger of the opioid crisis, which has claimed more than half a million victims in 20 years in the United States.