“A scion of the Sackler family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma, vowed in court on Tuesday that the family would walk away from a $4.5 billion pledge to help communities nationwide that have been devastated by the opioid epidemic, unless a judge grants it immunity from all current and future civil claims associated with the company. Absent that broad release from liability, said David Sackler, 41, a former board member and grandson of one of the founders, the family would no longer support the deal that the parties have painstakingly negotiated over two years to settle thousands of opioids lawsuits brought by states, cities, tribes and other plaintiffs.”

“‘We need a release that is sufficient to get our goals accomplished, and if the release fails to do that, then we will not support it,” Mr. Sackler declared during the fourth day of fractious testimony in the confirmation hearing for the bankruptcy plan of Purdue Pharma, whose misleading marketing of the prescription painkiller OxyContin is widely seen as igniting the opioid epidemic. Instead, he said he believed the Sacklers would resume fighting all the cases ‘to their final outcomes’ – a process that would be inordinately costly and protracted for everyone involved. The Sacklers’ $4.5 billion pledge is the centerpiece of the settlement plan and, without it, the deal will almost certainly collapse. The money is to be paid over nine or ten years, to begin to cover the extraordinary costs of an addiction crisis that has contributed to the deaths of more than a half-million Americans since the late 1990s. Under the plan’s other major terms, Purdue would be remade into a new public benefit company, whose profits would almost all go to the settlement, and the Sacklers would renounce all involvement” – New York Times.