NEW YORK – The US Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it has reached an agreement worth $ 8.34 billion with the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive opiate drug OxyContin, to close the civil and criminal cases it has had for years with the company and its owners, the Sackler family.
Purdue Pharma has agreed to plead guilty in federal court in New Jersey to three criminal charges related to fraudulent payments to healthcare providers and other actions, and for that it will have to pay “the largest fines ever imposed on a pharmaceutical producer.” , in the words of the federal attorney of that state.
That agreement paves the way for the drugmaker, which filed for bankruptcy a year ago due to a barrage of lawsuits, to hand over its future benefits to the cities and states that accuse it of fueling the country’s opioid crisis, as well as it will not prevent the government from pursuing Purdue owners or entrepreneurs in the future.
“The abuse and diversion of prescription opiates has contributed to a national tragedy of addiction and death, in addition to that caused by illegal opiates on the streets,” Assistant US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a statement.
“With criminal convictions, a federal settlement of more than 8,000 million and the dissolution of the company and reuse of its assets completely for the benefit of the public, the resolution announced today reaffirms that the Department of Justice will not back down in its multiple efforts to fight the opioid crisis, “he added.
The monetary settlement includes a $ 3.544 million fine and a $ 2 billion garnishment to settle criminal cases plus $ 2.8 billion to resolve civil liabilities, but given that Purdue Pharma’s assets are much lower, it will pay $ 225 million and the federal government is expected provide most of the rest.
The pharmaceutical company that caused controversy over the sale of OxyContin filed for bankruptcy.
Purdue owners, members of the once powerful Sackler family, will contribute $ 225 million separately to settle their corresponding civil lawsuit.
Prosecutor Rosen said that a “key piece” of the resolution is that if the authorities approve Purdue’s bankruptcy process, which is settled in New York, this will mean that the company “is dissolved and does not exist in its current form, for the Sacklers (and their successors) to relinquish ownership and control, and for the assets to be transferred to a new public charity fund. “
In that case, the Department of Justice “will credit the company for the value conferred through the public charity fund against the amount seized, except for the $ 225 million that will be paid to the US on the effective date of bankruptcy,” explained the prosecutor. .
The multinational Johnson & Johnson (J&J) will have to pay more than 572 million dollars for its role in the opioid crisis in the state of Oklahoma.
Purdue introduced the highly addictive opiate OxyContin to the US market in 1996 and embarked on an aggressive commercialization strategy, the starting point of a crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country over the past two decades.
The deal has not been well received by many states, which last week wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr expressing concern that the government has ties to a new entity that has the assets of Purdue Pharma and the OxyContin business.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in reaction to the announcement that the federal government “had the power to send the Sacklers to jail” and criticized that “Purdue will probably never pay in full,” while his Massachusetts counterpart Maura Healey, considered that an agreement to win an election has been accelerated.
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