
Sacklers Would Give Up Ownership of Purdue Pharma Under Settlement Proposal - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/health/sacklers-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html
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spodek
Dave Chappelle's sketch on if we treated corporate criminals like street drug
dealers is relevant (and funny)
[https://youtu.be/HeOVbeh2yr0](https://youtu.be/HeOVbeh2yr0).

Yet more relevant when the corporate criminals are drug dealers.

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mwsfc
The short of it from the article (my interpretation much simplified): the
Sacklers would keep the bulk of their prior gains (however that may be
defined) but will give up their ownership of the manufacturer of Oxycontin, a
large contributor of their potential future gains. So yeah. That certainly
doesn't seem like much of a penalty, given the fortune the family has already
made and doesn't seem to provide any real disincentive for others not to
follow suit in the future ....just make enough money before the lawsuits
start. <sarcastic tone> Feels a little like FB's recent FTC "slap on the
wrist".

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bilbo0s
The thing is though, this stuff is hard. Getting the law to punish stuff like
this is not as easy as people think it is. Prosecutors are out trying to find
creative ways to sanction these sorts of people and corporations, but it's
just not this simple, quick thing you can do.

Also, keep in mind a lot of this is being done with an eye to the future. In a
very real way, the Sacklers are only, what? Maybe 8 to 10% of the problem? The
rest of the opioids came from other corporations. So you get a settlement with
the little guy, all of a sudden you're in a better position to pressure the
other guys.

Maybe it does suck. Maybe it is infuriating. But the alternative is that you
potentially lose leverage and you never get any of the bad guys. I guess I'm
just saying, this stuff is harder than people think it is.

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taurath
That’s the problem. You have 30,000 statutes to deal with a street dealer, but
a billionaire family selling drugs is “hard” to prosecute. Justice never comes
for the rich in the US.

Settlements for criminal conduct should be illegal full stop. Money shouldn’t
be a get out of jail free card.

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sidcool
It's very sad that they were allowed to willfully do this for years. And now
that law is finally catching up on them, they will pay a chunk of their blood
money and go scott free.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they will pay a chunk of their blood money and go Scott free_

Based on what?

We saw similar pronouncements following Elizabeth Holmes' civil charges. And
pretty much every scandal preceding and succeeding that.

This settlement is similar to the J&J public-nuisance ruling in Oklahoma.
Public nuisance does not require proving intent. Proving intent is difficult.

Many believe prosecutors in the United States, Canada, and Europe, will find
evidence of ill intent amongst members of the Sackler family. That would lead
to additional confiscations of property and, if criminal convictions can be
attained, potentially even jail time.

But that's a longer, more difficult and more expensive process. Hence why this
comes first.

~~~
FussyZeus
Except profit motive is not often considered ill intent, and that's something
I take issue with. More often than not, this basically goes down as something
like 'bad business decisions' which carries little if any personal liability
for the executives of the given company, and why exactly is that? Just because
you were a decision maker at a large company, or part of a team that made a
given decision, when the harm done is this catastrophic, how do you get to
just walk away?

And before you say "this comes first" or "we're not there yet" just think back
to the 2008 banking crisis, and how the people who got incredibly rich(er) off
of the backs of working class people are still very much incredibly rich, many
_still working in the industry they royally screwed up in._

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50ckpuppet
This is a payoff from the Sacklers to stay out of jail. Accountants and
Lawyers crunch the numbers to come up with a payoff that allows them to keep
their wealth and move on as if it never happened. They'll negotiate a little
and bump the number by 20% and live out their lives like the Kennedy's.

~~~
mikelyons
For those who are ignorant.

What about this parallels the lives of the Kennedys?

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dopamean
I think it has to do with the bootlegging maybe?

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sceadu
And securities fraud.

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OedipusRex
Joseph Kennedy made his fortune off securities fraud, and was appointed by FDR
as the first SEC Chairman, saying "set a thief to catch a thief".

[https://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2...](https://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2005/12/it-
takes-a-thief-the-first-sec-chairman.html)

[https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=erpn...](https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=erpn-
jpk)

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aurizon
Turn it into a generic manufacturer and distribution hub that will lower
generic prices deep and wide...

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deftnerd
I would go one step further. Nationalize the company.

There is always talk about "if companies are people, how do we punish them
when they break the law?". Well, what about nationalizing them for the public
good for a certain number of years that matches what a person would get in
prison for a similar crime?

Purdue Pharmaceuticals could be put under the umbrella of Medicaid and ordered
to manufacture generic drugs for the next 30 to 50 years (or forever if
contributing to tens of thousands of deaths would be equivalent to a life
sentence)

~~~
rayiner
How does it serve the public interest to have government management run a
company into the ground? Do you want more Amtraks? That’s how you get more
Amtraks. If you want a nuclear bomb for corporate misconduct, it seems like
the best approach would be to distribute the shares to the victims while
keeping the company privately owned and operated.

(Downvoters are on the wrong side of history. Nationalizing companies is a
failed experiment. Privatization of state-owned companies is one of the few
things nearly everyone agree on, from the US to Sweden to putatively Marxist
countries like Vietnam:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2018/12/30/vietna...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2018/12/30/vietnams-
promises-big-privatization-push-for-2019-but-reality-may-fall-short))

~~~
liability
> _Do you want more Amtraks?_

That gave me a good belly laugh. In the metrics I care about, Amtrak could be
seen to represent the government at their best.

The trains run on time, are more comfortable than flying, and often cheaper
too. The dining cars are surprisingly good (snack cars are lackluster though),
and I've found _every_ Amtrak employee I've ever dealt with to be a kind and
courteous professional. And they look after their customers in other respects
too, such as chasing away the notorious serial-gropists known as the TSA.
Amtrak treats regular people like humanely in a way that contrasts sharply
with how American airlines behave.

From my perspective the primary problem with Amtrak is disappointing coverage
of the country, so yes I want more Amtraks!

(Incidentally, my experience with them is more limited, but I found the
workers of the Alaska Marine Highway, a ferry service operated by the state of
Alaska, to be similarly pleasant people. So maybe there is a trend here..)

~~~
rayiner
> The trains run on time

Amtrak has abysmal reliability, even on the Northeast Corridor (which is
Amtrak-owned and doesn't share traffic with freight lines). On-time
performance on the northeast corridor is just 75%
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/10/the-s...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/10/the-
sorry-state-of-amtraks-on-time-performance-mapped). Many scheduled flights
along that route ( _e.g._ DCA to JFK or LGA) have 90% on-time performance. And
of course, trains aren't supposed to have airline-like delays. One of the key
selling points of trains is that they don't have to deal with airport
congestion, late arriving equipment, etc., and so relatively short intercity
trips are predictable and hassle-free. (Unlike Amtrak.) My wife and I rode
Amtrak twice a day for two years between DC and Delaware. It was a nightmare.
Routinely delayed trains, cancelled trains at least once a month, etc. No
private business would survive operating like that.

It's also odd that you'd cite TSA as a bad thing. TSA is, of course, what
happened when the government nationalized airport security, taking it away
from the private security forces airlines previously used.

~~~
liability
To be clear I don't blame airlines for the TSA, but I certainly credit Amtrak
with keeping them at a distance. If you had opened with criticism of the TSA,
not Amtrak, then I would have upvoted you.

As for the rest, I'd rather be a little late than be treated like shit. The
Amtrak delays I've encountered have all been less than an hour, compared to
numerous incidents of multi-day delays when flying (I'll never do business
with Delta again under any circumstances. Being stuck in Atlanta for two days
is pretty bad, but the shear malicious joy their employees were expressing at
the situation was as bad as any stereotypical DMV encounter.) A few hours of
delay isn't such a problem, but some Americans seem to enjoy being in a
perpetual state of hurry...

I can't help but wonder if such impatience is somehow related to the general
surliness of airline employees, relative to Amtrak and the Alaska ferry. The
last ferry I was on got delayed for several hours one morning after responding
to a mayday and being kept on the scene by Canadian Coast Guard during the
search. The crew was _unnecessarily_ apologetic while nearly all the
passengers were, if anything, a bit proud or appreciative. I shudder to think
of what such a delay on a plane would look like, with the sort of
personalities that would likely be involved...

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lordnacho
I can't tell from this whether the Sacklers are being contrite and genuinely
sorry for what's happened, or they've simply decided this is the best way to
preserve whatever assets they have. I'm guessing they'll still be mega-rich
whatever happens.

~~~
SantalBlush
They're probably sorry for what's happened, but not _that_ sorry. They're
likely too disconnected from many of the effects of the opioid crisis to truly
feel its devastation. Just like other high-level drug dealers, really.

~~~
alfromspace
They're sorry they were caught.

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timoth3y
Why not charge them with a few 100,000 counts of reckless engagement and a few
thousand counts of depraved indifference?

The punishment for causing this level of death and suffering should not be
limited to writing a check.

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diogenescynic
What criminal wouldn't trade 1/3 of profits for immunity for their crimes?

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mjcohen
As long as they end up in jail for the rest of their life, it's OK by me.

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Havoc
Walking away seems like a pretty sweet deal

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jgalt212
Of course, when it comes to the rich and powerful, no mention of jail time.

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gingabriska
It's amazing how they took calculated risk and ended up with net gains and
avoided any criminal charges.

Do you need a really high IQ to think way? Is one person able to make such
strategy or do you need a group of high IQ people to pull off something like
this?

Are there lots of people they know in power?

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mschuster91
Does anyone have a workaround for this paywall, please?

~~~
ProAm
Just subscribe and pay for good journalism. it's like asking for a workaround
for the SAAS website people here work on.

~~~
mschuster91
I would, if there was something like a global Netflix for newspapers. I'm
European, what point do I have in subscribing in a shitload of US newspapers?

Media desperately needs a convenient and affordable financing model that does
not depend on selling off their users' data to the highest bidder.

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ofidizkbodn
Good start, but not good enough.

The executives should be facing execution [0]. In exchange for dropping the
death penalty they should get no better then life time in prison.

[0] if can execute a black kid for being a driver in a botched robbery, why
can’t we RICO these assholes to the gurney? Purdue Pharma can supply the
execution drugs

~~~
Nasrudith
Because RICO doesn't work that way - period. The drugs provided were clean and
of the specified doses and they never ordered any capital crimes. Thus nothing
to RICO chain for overdoses or secondary effects.

The felony murder rule has some messed up assignment of responsibility (fair
enough for eggshell patients and causing dangerous situations but dead
accomplices or absolving reckless use of force by pinning it on the felon are
problematic) but it also isn't one of the enumerated crimes.

