CHARLESTON -- West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey and 54 other AGs have agreed to a $7.4 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.
McCuskey’s office says West Virginia will receive up to $53 million of the settlement. Local governments soon will be asked to join the settlement contingent on bankruptcy court proceedings.
McCuskey
McCuskey’s office also says the Sackler family has informed the attorneys general of its plan to proceed with the settlement, which would resolve litigation against Purdue and Sacklers for their role in the creating and worsening the opioid crisis across the country.
“The Sacklers aggressively marketed their drugs to communities like ours, without a care in the world about the lives they were destroying, only focused on their bottom line,” McCuskey said. “The settlement holds the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma accountable for the pain they’ve caused our state and our country.
“Now, hopefully, we can start to recover and turn the page on the opioid crisis.”
The settlement ends the Sacklers’ control of Purdue and their ability to sell opioids in the United States. The AGs claim that under the Sacklers’ ownership, Purdue made and aggressively marketed opioid products for decades, fueling the largest drug crisis in the nation’s history.
Communities across the country will directly receive funds over the next 15 years to support addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery. This settlement in principle is the nation’s largest settlement to date with individuals responsible for the opioid crisis.
While most other states will receive their settlement payments over the 15 years, West Virginia will receive as much as $53 million from this settlement on an accelerated payment schedule over the next nine years because of the disproportionate impact opioids have had on the state.
Most of the settlement funds will be distributed in the first three years. The Sacklers will pay $1.5 billion, and Purdue will pay roughly $900 million in the first payment. That will be followed by $500 million after one year, an additional $500 million after two years and $400 million after three years.
Like prior opioid settlements, the settlement with Purdue and the Sacklers will involve resolution of legal claims by state and local governments. The local government sign-on and voting solicitation process for this settlement moving forward will be contingent on bankruptcy court approval. A hearing is scheduled on that matter in the coming days.
Including this new settlement, West Virginia has obtained settlements totaling more than $1 billion from companies that helped fuel the opioid epidemic.
In addition to all 50 states except Oklahoma, the other AGs who joined in securing the settlement are from American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Oklahoma previously settled with Purdue Pharma in 2019.
