Purdue’s Sackler family wants global opioids settlement: Sackler lawyer Mary Jo White

PUBLISHED TUE, APR 23 2019 • 9:55 AM EDT

Reuters

Mary Jo White of Debevoise & Plimpton represents four members of the family that controls Purdue Pharma, the company that developed and marketed the painkiller OxyContin. Purdue, along with other opioid makers, wholesalers and distributors, is facing more than 2,000 suits by state, city and county officials who blame prescription opiates for sparking an unprecedented epidemic of drug abuse.

In rare public comments on behalf of the Sacklers, White told me why the family believed the litigation against them and their company is legally dubious, factually misleading and politically motivated.

But White also said the Sacklers do not want to litigate these cases to their bitter end. The family, she said in the first disclosure indication of the family’s stance on the opioids litigation, want to settle.

“The objective is and remains to try to achieve a global resolution,” said White, a former Manhattan U.S. Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission chair. “Purdue and the Sackler family members, given this litigation landscape, would like to resolve with the plaintiffs in a constructive way to get the monies to the communities that need them, to the people that are addicted ... rather than to pay attorneys’ fees for years and years and years to come. You’re talking 2,000 cases. How long will they take to go through the court system?”

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