The Sacklers, the Jewish family behind OxyContin, will pay $6 billion in a deal that shields them from lawsuits

The Sackler family, Jewish multi-billionaires whose promotion of the opioid pill OxyContin sparked the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States, would be granted complete protection from any civil legal claims in exchange for up to $6 billion in expenditure on addiction treatment and prevention initiatives.

A federal appeals court panel’s decision to grant immunity on Tuesday basically puts a stop to the thousands of civil claims brought against Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers’ business, over opioid deaths.

However, it opens the door for the business to file for bankruptcy, a step that is thought to be crucial to a plan to pay out billions of dollars to assist states and communities in addressing the opioid crisis.

Around $750 million of the $6 billion that could be disbursed under the agreement will go to people.

The decision overturns a 2021 decision by a lower court that declared bankruptcy filings an unlawful means of protecting affluent private individuals from legal ramifications.

The Sackler family is not guaranteed immunity from potential future legal claims.

The sons of Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn who founded Purdue attended medical school in Scotland because American medical institutions at the time did not accept Jews.

Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler are considered the founders of Purdue.

After Arthur had departed the company, Mortimer and Raymond created OxyContin in 1996.

The family went on to make billions by aggressively marketing the medicine for more than two decades, despite warning signals that it would lead to opiate addiction.

The three brothers were valued at roughly $11 billion two years ago, but they have since passed away, leaving other family members in charge of Purdue Pharma.

Before the opioid lawsuits started piling up in 2019, the Sackler name had been a regular fixture in philanthropic circles.

However, as a result, numerous cultural organizations started turning down the family’s donations and removing their names from their structures.

Nan Goldin, a Jewish artist and activist, was the driving force behind a long-running grassroots fight against the family. Although the American-facing part of Tel Aviv University’s medical school secretly removed the Sackler name from its marketing materials last year, Tel Aviv University has resisted calls to remove the Sackler name from its medical school.