Purdue Pharma can protect Sackler owners in opioid bankruptcy, court rules
ca2.uscourts.gov
ca2.uscourts.gov
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals finds that the Bankruptcy Code, as currently written, allows for this action.
That the Sackler family is a bunch of profiteering, morally-bankrupt assholes is immaterial.
If we feel this is an unjust outcome, change starts with Congress passing laws that alter the Bankruptcy Code.
E.g. by individually-benefit-but-mass-cost initiatives ("Vote yes if you want $1"), exploiting insufficient education ("To enshrine wildlife management into our constitution" that actually permits nature exploitation), or overly emotional issues-of-the-day ("Increase national security powers" after a terrorist attack).
Though it seems like the sheer organizational barrier to ballot inclusion (i.e. mass signature collection) limit the worst excesses of the above.
In modern times, direct ballot initiatives definitely have their place in a functioning democracy, although perhaps with high barriers to listing, maximum numbers per ballot, and cool-down periods ("Will be on the ballot X years from now").
And likewise, sometimes the "experts" installed within the bureaucratic system are not representative of the needs of the society.
That is an issue, but I wasn't advocating for the inherent superiority of referenda over legislative process, only that it's more practical to get something done. It's probably faster to get yourself elected than it is to lobby elected officials on some abstract or distributed issue where there isn't an obvious coalition.
I don't disagree with your other ideas, except for the cool-down period. While that can certainly be abused, asking people to sign up for something that can't be manifested for several years into the future is an instant demotivator to any action.
Having said that, I think the entire election machinery and so on could usefully be replaced by digital voting, and managed on an ongoing basis rather than at infrequent intervals; a wikiocracy, so to speak. It will have flaws, limitations, and be subject to abuse, but representative democracy as practiced in most places is a 16th-18th century political technology that is manifestly inadequate for 21st century polities.
I posit an opposing viewpoint: people know what they want; why get in their way -- you're not their parents. Take care of your intimates and close ones, but let other people live their lives in their enclaves, bubbles, and so on -- self-governing as they please.
Will they do and believe in things that you personally wouldn't? Yes. Will some of those things end up being terribly offensive to your sensibilities (morals/ethics/beliefs, what have you)? Most likely.
Under direct voting, if you see something that you believe to be terribly bad being brought out onto the floor, you are free to organize amongst your community to strike it down (or do the reverse, and bring forth an initiative you believe to be good). But that also opens up the possibility that no one will want what you want, and your initiatives will fail. At that point, you can either accept it, and go on with your life, or -- in these globalized times -- move somewhere else with people that share your views.
Generally, if you don't completely disintegrate the community through various means (as is popular in the U.S., see: globalized workforce), they can self-govern in a way that is sustainable and that fulfills their best interests. This is how humanity has survived for countless thousands of years.
Better yet, give back to the people the means for self-sufficiency, and you will soon see that national/federal power wanes, as there is little need for external forces to keep a community alive and thriving. "Vote yes if you want $1 (fine-print: by also giving us logging rights to your forests)" is easily prevented by: a close-knit and cohesive community with a group "mind." Your community leaders will tell you it's a swindle, and to drive out anyone that comes with such a proposition. Of course, that would lessen the amount of exploitation the individual receives by higher powers -- thereby "shorting" these same powers of their self-justified right over the individual (and his resources). I.e. a lot of powerful people's plans and careers and goals will be upended -- and that's a no-no.
Maybe California is too large of a community, but (as a general rule) larger entities will devour smaller entities when allowed to do so.
As soon as things turn into a zero sum game, consumption by definition deprives another, and there needs to be a better method of allocation than first/strongest.
To me, that's what restraints on direct democracy are -- ensuring that even those without numbers/power/pathos can get a fair shake. Because the best for everyone doesn't always come attached to the most of any of those.
E.g. I fail to be able to describe a scenario where raising taxes would ever win a straight democratic vote, even if it were a blatantly existential crisis for a nation.
I think the original point was that on a sufficiently small scale, this isn't true. I was in an HOA that raised the fees, because the reserve funds got down to under $10k.
Can the President also issue something like the inverse, for cases where the law seems obviously buggy?
The legal system does have a history of favoring the powerful and connected.
Since both things are humans talking about their interpretations of text, can you ELI5 why one was rooted in activism and the other was rooted in objectivity?
"Things I like" are reading the plain, obvious text of the law/Constitution/16th century jurist that I've decided is relevant.
Guess what? Junkies lived. Turns out that when they get a clean high manufactured by competent pharmaceutical engineers, they tend not to be found catatonic by callous law enforcement who say "fuck it" and refuse to save their lives with the naloxone they have with them.
When did junkies start dying? With the supply of oxy dried up because the DEA shut down pill mills, they had no other options than dirty street heroin that it turns out is mostly just fentanyl and carfentanyl.
I have no clue how this is considered an improvement by the media that reports on such things, or why so many are so eager to buy it.
If El Chapo started selling clean/safe drugs that didn't kill people, how the fuck would he be anything other than a goddamned hero? How many are dying of overdoses every week again?
Knowing this and allowing them to do it anyway would be a dystopia I want no part of.
It should be legalized.
Death-by-opiate/opioid-overdose shrank while they were selling this. Shutting down the pill mills killed people. Like, more people are dying now than otherwise would. And you're ok with that?
I guess when the DEA makes up bullshit, you're just happy to parrot it.
> Knowing this and allowing them to do it anyway would be a dystopia I want no part of.
You're in the dystopia now. You're just insulated from it. Something close to 100,000 people will this year because they're using dirty street drugs and fucking elephant tranquilizer instead of Purdue's safe drugs.
WTF. I wish I got to live in a world where evil was committed by supervillains doing it deliberately, rather than this clownworld where people do it and think they're the good guys. You should be ashamed of yourself. Go do some fucking self-reflection.
The above is the equivalent of finding out your child has been an alcoholic for the past decade, and abruptly shutting down all liquor stores in your town.
Your child is going to start having seizures, and your town will be incredibly irritated at you for being so hasty.
Death from alcohol ODs are around 2400/year. The last year of opioid deaths from OD's in 2022 were 106,000.
This is no different from the example above.
Pharmaceutical companies push opioids on doctors -> doctors push opioids onto people -> someone gets uppity and decides something should be done now -> opioid access is quickly curtailed -> people now need to get their fix because pharmaceutical companies have upregulated their opioid receptors, causing life to be living hell -> people go acquire opioids through the black market -> it's laced with fent and then people die
Alcohol poisoning was common in the bootleg era, when some people got uppity and decided something must be done now about alcohol -- and people do as people do, went to go get their fix from shady suppliers with tainted product; then they were seriously injured or killed.
Citation needed.
From time to time you see the latest Corruption Perception Index scores come out [1] and the USA always ranks among the least corrupt countries.
That's due to the difficulties in defining corruption. Here in the USA I think there is very little illegal corruption that happens. Very few people avoid a speeding ticket by greasing the palm of a police officer.
Instead we have stuff like this, where a powerful family, aided by the most prestigious management consultants [2] kill and addict millions of citizens, but they took steps to ensure the law accommodated their evil, and protected them afterwards. It's not technically corruption because they worked within the system to pass their laws and peddle their dope.
So then it's not just local police, or a local government, or even one administration that people see is corrupt and working against us, but the entire system of government, 'by the people, for the people' has somehow been perverted, and turned into a sham.
And then these same villains see how the people have no mechanism to fight back, they see all we can do is roll over and take it, and it inspires them to think about what they can get away with next.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index [2] https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/06/30/mckinsey-opioid-documents-arc...
As for the case itself, it seems the court wants to protect the settlement because they know it's unlikely they will be able to pierce the veil of corporate protection and go after the owner's for the $5.5-$6 billion that is only voluntarily contributed if the settlement works. In considering the greater good I think the win of $5.5-$6 billion in additional settlement money for victims is a greater good than the restrictions on potential lawsuits against the Sacklers is an evil. Ideally any victims who had their rights restricted by this clause would have an option to be a late joiner of the settlement and could ensure compensation that way.
> The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index which ranks countries "by their perceived levels of *public sector corruption*, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
From skimming the court order, it seems that this is an instance of private sector corruption. In 2004, the Purdue board (which included at least 6 Sackler family members) created a policy to indemnify the board, executives, and some others against any claims/suits/etc. There was a narrow carve-out where a court decision that someone acted in "bad faith" would void the indemnification.
An example in this case would be: instead of all the boring legalese, the high-paid BigCons [2], and the unfulfillable expectation of pristine judgements, to have just a coin flip: 50% chance for guilty, 10 years jail, 50% chance free as a bird. Skew it even further, for every person killed or $1 million stolen add some percentages to the guilty chance and some years to the penalty. Solve every lawsuit in a matter of seconds, nothing to debate [3], no false belief of fairness or equity, just sheer, dumb luck, for the society or for the accused.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_iustitia,_et_pereat_mundu...
[2] 2023, Mariana Mazzucato, The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies
[3] 'Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”', lots of unprecedented to come in the near future, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-f...
That one?
But when a corporation expresses false advertisements, they are fined -- regardless of their "freedom of speech."
A private citizen should be able to lobby. Corporations should not.
The problem is that they exist at all. Nothing in the Constitution says that the government (of Delaware, no less) should have the legitimate power to wave a magic wand and create fictitious legal entities that are effectively immortal but are born without a moral compass.
If it did have that legitimate power, then it's still bad that it can happen for the payment of a $250 fee and filing of a stack of legal paperwork.
Everything that the whiny lefties gripe about with capitalism is actually the fault of corporations, not capitalism. Sounds like you're ok with them existing though, you just think that's possible with them a "little less powerful" or something.
Perhaps start off with removing the corporate veil. Officers of corporations (or any incorporated entity) are now personally liable for what goes on. This could pave the way for trimming down extra-national entities like multinational corps (the risk is immense for there to be bodies buried in various dark corners of huge corporations -- only the insane would take on these positions).
If you want to know if I'm a card-carrying communist or not, feel free to read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36132733
It's couched in mild language, because of the venue we're in.
Why would you ever work towards it as a long term goal? Once your faction had even a little political power, you'd have more control over corporations. And they're quite powerful in their way. They'd become too appealing at that point.
Much more fun to tame the godzilla monster and sic it on your enemies.
For example, Florida, DC, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas have unlimited (of various flavors, for example Texas is 100/200 acres rural (single/family) or 1 acre urban). Most require something like 40 months living, but consult an advisor.
> Annual bankruptcy filings in calendar year 2022 totaled 387,721, compared with 413,616 cases in 2021, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
edit: removing the repeated comments
pg. 17
> Starting in 2007, the Sacklers anticipated that the effects of litigation against Purdue would eventually impact them directly. See, e.g., Deferred Joint App’x at 5059 (David Sackler emailed Jonathan and Richard Sackler, “We will be sued . . . . [A]sk yourself how long it will take these lawyers to figure out that we might settle with them if they can freeze our assets and threaten us.”). From 2008 to 2016, Purdue distributed a significant proportion of the company’s revenue—an approximated $11 billion in total—to Sackler family trusts and holding companies. This represented an increase in the distribution pattern from years prior and “drained Purdue’s total assets by 75% and Purdue’s ‘solvency cushion’ by 82%” during that same time period.
pg. 25
> In applying the Iridium factors, the bankruptcy court observed that, in this case, counsel on both sides were experienced and formidable. Id. at 86–87. Over 95% of the voters approved the Plan, showing clear creditor support, and the potential difficulty in collecting from the Sacklers and their related entities on any successfully litigated claims was an issue of “significant concern.” Id. at 89. The court noted that while the Sacklers are worth approximately $11 billion, they are a large family whose assets are “widely scattered and primarily held” in spendthrift trusts—both offshore and in the United States—that are largely unreachable via bankruptcy proceedings.9 Id. at 88. Moreover, certain members of the Sackler family live “outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and might not have subjected themselves sufficiently to the U.S.” such that a U.S. court would have personal jurisdiction over them. Id. And, perhaps most importantly, according to the court, continued litigation—even if it were limited to the claims at issue—would be extremely expensive and lead to delays. Id. at 89– 90. Thus, the court reasoned, an order against confirmation would not only destroy the entire settlement but would also result in a major escalation of costs and time.
The argument the bankruptcy court made - and which this decision upholds - appears to boil down to "they've been so successful at squirreling away the $11bn they took out of the company that we probably can't get it back, so we shouldn't try; letting them get away with it yields more for creditors".
Yikes. I guess this makes it legal to do the following:
- Start a company, do something really bad, and make a lot of money. - Before you get sued, take the money out and hide it in offshore accounts. - Get sued, declare bankruptcy, and return a small fraction of the money as "goodwill" in exchange for a release of claims.
And, oh, have really good lawyers so that the court calls your counsel "experienced and formidable", enough to make coming after you too expensive to even consider.
Bin Laden lived outside US jurisdiction too, but that didn't stop the US from going after him. The Sacklers have been responsible for way more than the 3000 deaths that OBL caused.
> Thus, the court reasoned, an order against confirmation would not only destroy the entire settlement but would also result in a major escalation of costs and time.
Of course, these considerations don't come into effect when it's a, say, a poor Black guy caught for shoplifting $50 worth of goods; then it's "lets throw the book at him and lock him up for a dozen years!", even though locking someone up can cost upwards of $50K/year in places like California.
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/03...
Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official, illustrates AIPAC's power for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin." As Mearsheimer and Walt make clear, this is no idle boast, and they go on to say, "As will become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, usually in overwhelming numbers".
They note AIPAC President Howard Friedman telling the organization's members in August 2006, "AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We ask each candidate to author a "position paper" on their views of the U.S.-Israel relationship - so it is clear where they stand on the subject."
One congressional candidate (Harry Lonsdale) who went through this vetting process recounts that, "I found myself invited to AIPAC in Washington, D.C. fairly early in the campaign, for "discussions". It was an experience I will never forget. It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific opinion on each. Actually I was told what my opinion must be, and exactly what words I was to use to express those opinions in public..... Shortly after that encounter at AIPAC, I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel..... that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called, they gave, from Florida to Alaska."
AIPAC also keeps track of congressional voting records and direct funds to opponents of congressmen who don't follow their line.
Apart from Congress, Mearsheimer and Walt show successful Jewish activists in key government positions (particularly from the 1970's onwards), such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrahams, David Wurmser and Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the Clinton and Bush administrations. This political combination managed to steer George Bush, sideline Condoleeza Rice, and bully Colin Powell into the Iraq war . The authors show the enormous frustration of the CIA as their intelligence was distorted to support the lie of Iraqi WMD and start an unprovoked war that was not in the interests of the United States.
A feeble Congress votes record aid budgets to Israel (currently four billion dollars a year), with loans being converted to grants, and quick acquiescences to Israeli demands that aid be paid up front (which means the U.S. has to borrow it to give to them), and to the Israeli refusal to account for how it was spent, both necessary conditions for other aid recipients.
The whole process is supported by Jewish Think Tank activists such as Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, and Joshua Muravchik at the American Enterprise Institute, and prominent journalists such as William Kristol, Michael Ladeen and Norman Podhoretz who are now agitating for America to declare war on Iran (and subsequently Syria and Saudi Arabia although they are not so open about this).
In their conclusion, Mearsheimer and Walt ask what can be done about the outlandish failure of the American government to act in the interests of America. They doubt that the Israel Lobby will relinquish its power in the press, campaign finance or government, so they suggest pressure for more open discourse, which seems to be happening. It was initially impossible to publish this book in America but it did eventually see the light of day after an article in the London Review of Books and an unprcedented 275.000 downloads of the working paper on Harvard's Kennedy School of Government website.
The authors see the (remote) possibility of congressmen treating Israel like any other country and they also show that the majority of American Jews aren't Likudniks and opposed the war in Iraq. They didn't like the AIPAC / Wolfowitz group but of course they lost out to the activists, so its not clear where all this goes, apart from generating some rumbling at the other end of the spectrum (for example, Robert Griffin's, "The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds" ). At present, Israel is greatly favoured while congress directs America to carry the massive cost of her wars in addition to generous transfers of aid.
[0] Roles such as policy advisors, director of congressional outreach, director of labor engagement, etc., not security or housekeeping.
A lot of misplaced anger here.
But yes, if you have good enough lawyers, you can get a better settlement than if you don't.
No lessons were learned.
and you ain't in it
and then there's the killing, harming, or incapacitating millions of folks, on top of that!
Eichmann in Jerusalem helps cast light on what people mean when they talk about things like systemic harms.
"Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no members of the Sackler family have been charged with crimes."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/after-years-of-pain-opio...
I’m wondering about the “members of the Sacklers family.”
One could consider this as just very smart business though if you do not care about the people harmed. They ran a company that did bad things that allowed them to get rich but they were smart enough to keep enough distance from the bad things to ensure they themselves had deniability.
- Everybody acknowledges Purdue Pharma broke the law and acted unethically.
- Everyone acknowledges Purdue Pharma made a lot of money directly from doing the above.
- Everyone acknowledges the Sackler family took a lot of money out of Purdue Pharma, including after they specifically knew Purdue Pharma was likely to pay judgements for the above.
- What's unclear is how we should treat the Sackler money as a result of all of this.
Bankruptcy law, as I understand it, limits itself to the possibly-enforceable and attempts to generate the best outcome for creditors.
Which by definition involves negotiation between profiteering owners (who want to give up as little of their ill-gotten money as possible) and creditors (who want as much money as possible).
And since, at the end of the day, owners can always hide money overseas or in trusts... creditors have an incentive to settle for less-than-everything.
So this is less about criminal culpability and more about negotiation.
Surely this exact case has happened before? It's gotta be pretty common for a company to be wildly profitable for a while, then suddenly bankrupt, and some owners have extracted all the profits in the meantime.
If it were instead 1,000 different shareholders and corporate officers, I think the public would have lost interest.
Whether it should be or not... probably not. But then we'd need much tougher laws to compel compliance with personal judgements as a consequence of bankruptcy proceedings (e.g. revoking citizenship, foreign country cooperation, etc).
If we removed the possibility for liability protection as part of a deal, shareholders would have less incentive to cooperate financially, and so there'd need to be a bigger enforcement stick to balance the equation.
The fact that this got overturned on initial appeal and then the original agreement reinstated on further appeal does suggest that it's at least legally controversial.
The arguments made by the court seem reasonable enough (that this may be the best chance for those suing the Sacklers to get any money out of them given the jurisdiction and counterclaim issues, and that the litigation would likely be expensive and time-consuming if it were to proceed) but I suppose it will strike many as odd that a bankruptcy court gets to make that judgment (and without actually hearing the cases themselves).