A federal bankruptcy court judge on Friday said he would approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids that includes some money for thousands of victims of the epidemic.
The deal overseen by US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane would require some of the multibillionaire members of the semi-reclusive Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7bn and give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm.
The new agreement replaces one the US supreme court rejected last year, finding it would have improperly protected members of the family against future lawsuits. The judge said he would explain his decision in a hearing on Tuesday.
I’m honesty shocked this got ‘won’ to this extent.
I would have figured that they had enough money, lawyers, and accountants, to quash most of this.
Yeah, of course they’re not actually personally going to rot in prison, that’s for little people.
Relative to a lot of other shit, this is a rare, near actual W for consumer protection in the US, by the standards of similar precedents.
… shame so many victims are already dead, lives ruined.
I’m kind of just surprised the legal system still functions at all, at this point, for people with a net worth over ~$100m.
We need to stop defaulting to “of course rich people won’t personally go to prison.” It only helps enable that in the courts. We need to be furiously protesting these courts and their decisions. Enforce EQUALITY in the court systems.
Talk all you want, won’t matter unless we get a lot more Luigis, or something like that.
Me, personally, I’m sick to death of ‘consensus building’ and ‘starting a discussion’.
We’re at least a, if not two decades beyond that point.
Sitting around talking on the internet or in real life already got monetized and turned into a profit engine by the same system that makes the wealthy into untouchable demigods.