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Sacklers Raise Their Offer to Settle Opioid Lawsuits by More Than $1 Billion:
Members of the billionaire Sackler family have sweetened their cash offer to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against them and their company, Purdue Pharma, offering up to $6 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion from an earlier offer, according to a mediator's report filed Friday afternoon in bankruptcy court.
But the deal is not done. The Sacklers have not budged from the line they drew in the sand at the outset of the case. In exchange for their billions, they are continuing to demand an end to all civil claims against them related to Purdue and opioids, and that future such claims be prohibited.
Legal experts and the public have criticized efforts by the Sackler family to seek personal protection from liability. It is a shield typically granted to companies seeking bankruptcy restructuring, as Purdue is, but rarely extended to owners who do not file for personal bankruptcy. Eight states and the District of Columbia refused to sign on to an earlier proposal because of the Sackler liability shields.
The mediator, Judge Shelley Chapman, a federal bankruptcy judge, said in her report that a "supermajority" of those states had now agreed to the new offer. But holdouts remain and the deal is not yet done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23 2022, @09:37PM
Buy one, get one free... and they'd appreciate if you would share with a friend.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday February 23 2022, @09:37PM (15 children)
How about they serve time in Supermax? How is it we let them be in a position to demand anything, when they should be begging for mercy?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23 2022, @09:44PM (1 child)
If they were held to account for their crimes it would set the terrible precedent of putting the law above wealth, and we can't have that, but if the court is seen letting them off too easily there might be riots, hence the dog and pony show until the public loses interest.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday February 24 2022, @05:42AM
Well at least they've set the precedent now, in the future other Sacklers like Pablo Escobar and Joaquín Guzmán want to walk away scot free all they have to do is negotiate a settlement of part of their profits with the US government like the Sacklers have, keep the rest, and get immunity from further legal action. Who wouldn't become a drug dealer with that golden parachute available?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 23 2022, @09:49PM
How naive... an extra Billion in settlement for something that made them tens of Billions in profits from a drug that has cost society Trillions in health and quality of life damages, loss of employment, families on welfare, violence, victims of crime, etc.?
They're being generous. Now take the money before they change their minds. /s
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 23 2022, @10:06PM (8 children)
Supermax? Seriously? These assholes aren't supervillians. They've done as much harm as some supervillians, but I could probably toss them in a high quality dog pen, and they wouldn't escape. Just a regular prison would be more than adequate. Supermax is high dollar, and these cretins don't deserve high quality.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23 2022, @10:18PM
Supermax is overkill from a 'keep them from escaping' perspective, but it makes it a lot harder for them to buy themselves private luxury cells or get their sentences reduced to house arrest by buying another friendly judge.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 23 2022, @11:22PM (3 children)
I'm just hoping they DO go to jail and then "kill themselves" like Jeffery Epstein did... but 'kill themselves' slowly......and painfully....and horribly: 'kill themselves' by slowly cutting their skin off their bodies and slowly pulling each of their teeth and fingernails and organs out.
You know; the standard "killing themselves".
(Jeffery Epstein just didn't have any imagination in 'killing himself'.)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 23 2022, @11:30PM (2 children)
Have you been watching the Hannibal Lectur movies again? Don't forget to have a couple dogs in the room, to consume all the scraps!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 23 2022, @11:42PM
NO! The scraps are my PRECIOUUUUSSSSSSSS!
Finger lickin' good.
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25 2022, @12:31AM
Right after they got through fucking them.
Is it still prison rape if it's not Kosher/Halal and isn't a human doing the raping?
Asking for a friend.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday February 24 2022, @03:11AM (1 child)
I mean, the fact is that most of 'em wouldn't survive a week in GenPop. But in a just world, they would be getting treated roughly the same as El Chapo, and they're not because they committed their crimes in a boardroom.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 24 2022, @03:15AM
They're not crimes when committed in a boardroom of sufficient standing, they're political gaffes which must be apologized for.
Elizabeth Holmes didn't have sufficient standing, got too greedy too fast, so now she's an example - to keep the others safe for a while.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @06:14AM
For example, Paul Cooper, on oxycontin since his surgery in 2014, and now a perpetual addict to the SoylentNews. This victim of the Sacklers needs help, and deserves it.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday February 24 2022, @12:35AM
whynotboth.jpg
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @05:10AM (1 child)
100 internet bucks says that if they end up anywhere, it will be FPC Alderson. The prison so relatively luxurious that it has private rooms bigger than my first apartment, used to have its own equestrian stables, and didn't have a perimeter fence until they had to install one in 2004 to keep the paparazzi out.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday February 24 2022, @05:47AM
I'd actually support that, all the male Sacklers should be sent to FPC Alderson.
For those who don't get the joke, Alderson is for female inmates, so said male Sacklers would need a small adaptation, preferably with a blunt heavy instrument, before they could go there.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by MIRV888 on Thursday February 24 2022, @12:22AM
Why are we using the term offer? If should be a fine and criminal charges. Not asking. Telling.
4 F-22's is not a fair payment for the nation's opioid / heroin disaster.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:00AM
force feed them oxycontin everyday until they croak
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 24 2022, @03:38AM (2 children)
Seize all their wealth, company and private, and dissolve the company as an entity. Get the people responsible hooked on their own Oxycontin...and then take it away from them. Let them go into withdrawal cold turkey and face it with no support, in solitary. And livestream that shit.
Then, assuming they survive, release them into the general public, penniless and homeless and unemployed. Make them find work...with a record of felony drug dealing.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:56PM (1 child)
You are a cruel heartless bitch. But, this time, I think I agree with you. How many times can you get the same person hooked, then clean him cold turkey? The entertainment value should last a good long while.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 25 2022, @03:35AM
Ask your middle child :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Thursday February 24 2022, @06:49AM (1 child)
When it comes to the lawsuits and money, cities are suing because they can, and will likely make a killing. It's basically their jobs to look at the numbers. Lawyers get ~30%. The rest will go into the coffers of local governments. I'm not sure about yours, but every single city I've ever lived in, finds amazing ways to just waste cash. Where are they going to get the people to staff and treat these people tomorrow, if they don't exist today? Where are all of the current rehabs being built from the money already given?
When it comes to this family, there is no doubt they've become the boogeymen. If this was a huge conspiracy, all doctors and nurses and hospitals and pharmacies were in on it. One can claim they were terrible, but I see companies run on autopilot, driven by the metrics of the finance algorithms, that aim for nothing but profit. I'd argue that pain was under-treated for a long time. Treatments became available, and they were over-prescribed. We have such a teeny-tiny mental healthy system in the country, that not only could they not help or tell these people to watch it, there wasn't, and still isn't anyone to help most people. So, was this mass psychosis? Yea, not a big fan of them, but I don't buy that this family somehow convinced an entire country of Doctors to go in on this idea that everyone should be addicted to this drug.
I've known lots of people caught up in the entire thing. I know people that got hooked hard when this happened. I've known folks that passed away. I've seen it change a lot of lives. It's terrible, but the idea that this one family is to blame, seems to me, totally miss the point.
I'd argue that mental health in America is fairly poor across the masses. Capitalism has absolutely infected everything. The financial models and requirements to maximize profit, created this in a perfect environment. That if people were more connected, less isolated, and had easy places to meet their neighbors without a hassle (Thinking a community 'beer garden, where anyone can also bring their own beer without needing permits from the government and permission, or cards, or water, or security, or virgin daiquiris (need health permits to even offer these for free(argh!)))
I digress.
TLDR: It is so sad what we've seen happen. This was a tragedy. Yea, the family isn't great, but I think the focus on them is in the wrong place. The money will be blown in a system that is incapable of helping, and certainly not until we train an army of people how to actually help people. We have to figure out how to bring back community, by reducing and/or eliminating the regulations that keep people, from being people.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 24 2022, @09:00PM
Was it, really? Me and mine haven't needed pain medications often, but, prior to the oxycontin problem, it always seemed to be available. "Hey Doc, this hurts, and aspirin and crap ain't helping." "Okay, I'll give you a shot, and you can get this script filled on the way home." Most of the time, we got a bottle of thirty, when ten or fifteen was enough to get past the pain, so there was always a little surplus laying around, until some junkie decided to steal it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @11:13AM
Nature sure is fantastic to watch in action, take for example our autotonomous Sacklers Geko.
The 6 billion$ tail has detached and is now wiggling frantically to entice the very same greedy government and lawyer predators to accept its delicious offer.
Wait for the next tail to regrow, what "happy" pills await us in the future?