NOTE: This is another post about trusting American corporations to do the right thing for their customers, Americans.
If lawsuits against the wealthy family aren’t halted, the Sacklers ‘may be unwilling—or unable’ to contribute billions to the drugmaker’s bankruptcy as planned, Purdue said in a court filing Wednesday.
In 2008, as Purdue Pharma was searching for a new chief executive, Richard Sackler received a memo from an adviser.
“In the event that a favorable [recapitalization] deal cannot be structured during 2008, the most certain way for the owners to diversify their risk is to distribute more free cash flow to themselves,” F. Peter Boer, a member of Purdue’s board of directors told Sackler, a prominent member of the wealthy family that owns the company.
[Read the 2008 memo from a Purdue board member to Richard Sackler]
That, authorities allege, is exactly what the Sackler family did. A lawsuit filed by the state of Massachusetts claims the Sacklers transferred more than $4 billion from the company to personal accounts between 2008 and 2016. Oregon asserts the family may have taken as much as $10 billion out of the company.