Sackler Family Gets Extension to Work on New Settlement Deal Offering Up to $6 Billion

The Sackler family, owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, are preparing to offer more money in a second opioid-associated bankruptcy settlement — up to $6 billion instead of the $4.3 billion a judge turned down last year when the family also wanted to secure immunity from future lawsuits as part of the deal.

The court-appointed mediator, former Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman, has been working with the family and eight states who objected to last year’s settlement offer and last week filed papers asking for an extension to Feb. 28 for the parties to fine-tune new settlement offers. The extension was approved.

The family’s new proposal contains “a number of significant noneconomic terms,” said Chapman in her filing. Those are presumed to again involve legal immunity for the Sacklers.

If accepted, the settlement would resolve about 3,000 lawsuits from states, tribes and other local entities alleging that Purdue Pharma’s and the Sackler family’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin contributed to the opioid overdose deaths of 500,000 people in the U.S. from 1999 to 2019.