A landmark court ruling on Tuesday cleared the way for opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma to settle thousands of legal claims tied to the nationwide opioid epidemic. The ruling from a federal appeals court in New York also protects members of the billionaire Sackler family, who own the company, from current or future lawsuits.
Under the plan, the Sacklers will give up ownership of Purdue, enabling it to become a new company called Knoa with profits being sent to a fund to treat and prevent addiction. Family members will also pay about $6 billion of their own cash over time. Roughly $750 million of that will go to individual victims of the opioid crisis and their survivors.
It is estimated those individual payments will range from about $3,500 to $48,000. The Sackler family and a lawyer for the victims praised the decision, while some activists have called for members of the family to be prosecuted for crimes.
