Report: Purdue owners offer to give up firm
STAMFORD — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and the local and state governments that have sued the company for allegedly fraudulent marketing of their topselling pain drug pressed on Tuesday with efforts to hammer out a comprehensive settlement, but Connecticut’s attorney general said he still was not satisfied with the potential conditions.
The Sackler family members who own Purdue have agreed to consider prospective settlement terms in which they would relinquish control of Purdue and the company would be transformed into a public trust, the family would make a $3 billion cash payout and additionally transfer up to $1.5 billion from the sale of their international prescriptiondrug business Mundipharma, a source close to the company on Tuesday told Hearst Connecticut Media. It was not immediately clear whether that potential framework, which could involve the company filing for bankruptcy with the plaintiffs’ consent, would resolve some or all of the approximately 2,000 lawsuits filed against Purdue by local governments across the country and nearly every state.
The source, who could not confirm how long those potential stipulations have been on the table, declined to be named due to not being authorized to speak publicly about the settlement discussions.
Despite a flurry of talks in the past few weeks — including a reported $10 billion to $12 billion offer by Purdue last month — no agreement has been reached. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Tuesday that the “current proposal” did not meet his settlement criteria, although he did not elaborate on which part was unsatisfactory to him. Last week, he said he would accept a settlement only if Purdue made a multibilliondollar payout and was also shut down. He also wants the Sacklers barred from selling prescription opioids.
“Connecticut has not agreed to any settlement, and that is no secret,” Tong said, in a statement. “I remain steadfast in my view that the Sacklers have to give back the money they took from selling opioids so that we can put it toward solving the problem they created. The current proposal does not do that. This is not the end — there is a long road to go and we are ready for this fight and ready go to the distance.”
Any settlement funds “must be put into addiction science, treatment and prevention” and “Purdue and the Sacklers must be held accountable for the resources necessary for longterm recovery and treatment,” Tong also said.
The settlement talks have forged ahead, despite the attorneys general of North Carolina and Tennessee warning their counterparts in an email last Saturday that settlement talks had deadlocked and that company was about to file imminently for bankruptcy without a settlement in place.
“We have been actively working with numerous state attorneys general and other plaintiffs on solutions that have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives and deliver billions of dollars to the communities affected by the opioid abuse crisis,” Purdue said, in a statement Sunday. “Those negotiations continue, and we remain dedicated to a resolution that genuinely advances the public interest.”
Public bankruptcy court records Tuesday showed no new filings from the company, but Tong has signaled his intent to continue pursuing Connecticut’s claims against Purdue and the Sacklers if they were to take that course of action. He has attributed Purdue’s potential bankruptcy to the Sacklers’ alleged siphoning of billions of dollars from the firm.
“This case is about so much more than our legal obligations and litigation strategy; this is about our moral obligation to the victims of the opioid epidemic — families in Connecticut and across the country — and bringing as much justice as we can to them all,” Tong added in his statement. “Purdue and the Sacklers had a real opportunity to begin to make this right and to begin to make restitution to their victims. They started this fire and they had a chance to help put it out. Instead, they chose to watch it burn.”
Purdue has denied Tong’s allegations.