The settlement is the largest deal to date with the people primarily who played an “instrumental role” in driving the opioid crisis, according to the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma on Thursday agreed to a $7.4 billion nationwide settlement deal to resolve hundreds of lawsuits alleging that they played a central role in causing the opioid addiction crisis in the U.S.
According to a press announcement from the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a big chunk of the payment will be doled out in the first three years of the agreement. The Sacklers will surrender $1.5 billion in the first tranche of the payment, while Purdue will give nearly $900 million. In the succeeding year, the Sackler family will pay $500 million more, followed by another $400 million round in the third year.
Campbell was one of the many attorney generals, along with a coalition of states and other entities, that helped secure the settlement. Massachusetts will get up to $108 million in settlement funds.
Thursday’s settlement will also force the Sacklers to relinquish their control over Purdue and will prohibit them and the company from selling opioids in the U.S. The settlement funds will be dispersed directly to affected communities over the next 15 years to support addiction prevention, treatment and recovery initiatives.
“While this settlement cannot bring back the lives lost, it will bring in much-needed funds to begin to remediate the damage and ensure that the Sacklers can be held accountable for the lasting devastation they have caused,” Campbell said in her statement. The settlement will still need to be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Thursday’s settlement agreement comes after the Supreme Court in August 2023 put Purdue’s $6 billion bankruptcy settlement plan on hold. In June 2024, the Court voted 5–4 that Purdue’s plan could not go through and granted the federal government’s motion to block the company’s settlement proposal. At the time, the justices said that Purdue’s plan would protect Sackler family members from future opioid-related litigation even if they personally did not declare bankruptcy.
The Sacklers, the family that has long owned Purdue Pharma, have for years tried to evade accountability for the opioid crisis. In a virtual hearing in December 2020, members of the family issued an apology to victims and their families—but nevertheless tried to shift the blame onto Purdue’s management. Less than a year later, in August 2021, family heir David Sackler said that they would not settle lawsuits for billions of dollars unless they are given guarantees of broad legal protections in exchange.
