Banchrotted Purdue buys time to reach an opioid contract worth $ 7.4 billion writes Reuters
Dietrich Knauth
New York (Reuters) – Purdue Pharma announced on Friday that she needed more time to build a new $ 7.4 billion in support for a new settlement that could complete the long -standing efforts of the company to solve thousands of lawsuits due to her Oxycontin dependence drug.
The company still needs to arrange the remaining details and seek redemption from the states, local authorities and other creditors who sued the company and owners of the Sackler family because of their role in the deadly opioid epidemic in the US.
Purdue’s lawyer Benjamin Kaminetsky said at the White Plains court hearing in New York that the company “almost arrived” at an agreement announced on Thursday by state attorneys several countries and that he would propose an official bankruptcy plan before the end of February.
The US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane, who supervises Purdue’s proceedings of Chapter 11, said that the company made concrete progress as agreed and approved her request to pause all opioid lawsuits against the Sackler at least by the end of February.
The bankruptcy case has stopped the launch of a litigation against the Sackler and Purdue, since the company entered Chapter 11 in 2019, and Lane has approved several short -term extension of fire interruption in the court disputes in recent months.
“We’ve been doing this for a while and we hope to get a closer,” Lane said on Friday.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 confronted with thousands of lawsuits in which he and members of the Sackler are accused of scattering an epidemic with a false marketing of Oxycontin. Medicinal manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy operators and other collectively agreed to pay about $ 50 billion to resolve similar lawsuits and investigations related to an opioid crisis in the US.
The new contract, which supports 15 countries, offers a new opportunity to conclude a long-term bankruptcy after the United States Supreme Court has canceled its previous settlement on Opioids. However, a long and uncertain path awaits him before the settlement is approved and the funds begin to flow to states, communities and individuals who have damaged the crisis.
The agreement has not yet been reviewed by most Purdue’s creditors, including countries, local authorities and individuals who have legal claims against the Sackler.
The key conditions of the settlement will be announced next week, said David Nachman, a lawyer who represents the state of New York. States that negotiated an agreement, including New York, California, Texas and Western Virginia, send it to other countries to encourage them to support the deal.
“We have a job to build that consensus and we are convinced that we will succeed,” Nachman said.
The new settlement is coming seven months after the Supreme Court ruled that the Sackler, who did not apply for bankruptcy, are not entitled to comprehensive legal protection that would allow debtors in bankruptcy a new beginning.
The settlement does not completely exclude lawsuits of states, local authorities or others who would rather give up the agreement and instead sued the Sackler, who said they would be vigorously defended in court.
The deal is not yet binding on the 15 countries that made it. Western Virginia is currently supporting the deal, but retains the possibility of off and separate litigation, according to the spokesman of State Attorney John McCuskey.
Lane said that creditors, including individuals who were personally damaged by an opioid crisis, would have to be patient as the settlement developed.
“People need to know what benefits of bankruptcy proceedings to them can bring them before deciding whether other options are the best way to continue,” Lane said.
