Judging Freedom - Purdue Pharma’s Sackler Family Opioid Deal in Jeopardy

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

The OxyContin maker’s chapter 11 reorganization plan hinges on legal questions that will determine owner Sackler family’s future liabilities for their role in the opioid epidemic.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here on Judging Freedom. It's Monday, January 3rd, 2022, and the Sackler family, that's the super wealthy family originally of doctors, now of doctors and business people that own a company called Purdue Pharma is back in the news. These are the people that made OxyContin and other pain reducing medications, which have caused thousands and thousands of individuals to be addicted to these painkillers and many people to die. Thousands of litigations were filed against Purdue Pharma, and the lawyers for Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family entered into a massive settlement, a one huge settlement, which basically said Purdue Pharma would go into bankruptcy. It would form a new company. The new company would be worth four and a half billion dollars, and the new company would be dedicated to reducing addiction to painkilling drugs.

Well, everybody involved in the negotiation agreed to that settlement, but the bankruptcy court said no, because in return for that settlement, all the lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and against the Sackler family itself would be stopped. So the question is, is this a fair settlement to put four and a half billion in a new company to reduce addiction to drugs in return for which nobody can sue the Sacklers and nobody can sue Purdue Pharma. That's where we are. We don't know how this is going to end up. We have one federal judge saying this can't go forward and another federal judge saying it must go forward. Prediction, this will be one of the largest financial settlements in the history of the country. It'll end up before the Supreme Court. There are many more chapters still to come on this. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.