That's ideal, isn't it? No one gets a reward, but the criminals lose what they have. Instead, the criminals are basically getting rewarded.

Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details.

> Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details.

No, none of the people getting immunity are filing for bankruptcy, which is one of the absolutely ridiculous parts of this settlement. Why should a bankruptcy settlement even apply to them if that's the case?

Amazing twist. Bankruptcy with all the legal protection and none of the losing all your money.

Admittedly I can't be sure of how much of their wealth is or isn't tied up in the bankruptcy--though I think the same is also true of everyone else here--but if they're anything like most others who own large companies, it represents a significant fraction of their net worth and it's about to be worthless.

Bankruptcy court is pretty much always like this, though. I remember the same kinds of things coming up during, e.g., SCO.

From a Bloomberg article I read, approximately $200 million will come from a family foundation, $3 billion will come from a forced sale of some international companies they own, and the remainder of the settlement from their vast array of trusts and other investments worth...approximately $8-9 billion dollars. So while the settlement is a large amount, it amounts to no practical impact for the family, which is why so many people think it's unjust. They will still have a huge amount of dynastic wealth and will not need to make any changes to their extravagant lifestyles whatsoever. Boohoo, the dynastic wealth will only enable the next 6 generations of Sacklers to be entitled pieces of shit instead of the next 8.

From what I understand, this bankruptcy preceding was for the company the family owned (Purdue Pharma) and they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement, but the balance of their family wealth remains beyond the reach of the courts.

this is the umpteenth example of why we need to shred the corporate veil. it doesn’t actually fuel innovation as it purports to do, but rather promotes a slippery slope of bad behavior by owners and executives (at the expense of customers, employees, and society at large). like many bad regulations, it’s a distortion of the risk profile for a given endeavor, which leads directly to negatively externalized, but rarely unintended, consequences.

all the sackler billions should be clawed back and commensurately redistributed to literally everyone else.

Yup. The good has to come with the bad. I can understand the motivation for things like limited liability, but if that is to exist then the individuals should not be able to extract billions from the corporation. We see this consistently. The rich and powerful justify something that benefits them by pointing out the downsides and then when the downsides rear their heads, the rich and powerful find a way to ignore them.

> they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement

Not even that. They agreed to give 4.3 billion dollars over the next 9 years. Given how much net worth they have, over that 9 years they will earn that much, or more, in interest. They're just giving up the next 9 years of growth, they'll still be multi-billionaires.

This settlement allows the Sackler family to keep some assets (billions?); many people have proposed that they deserve to lose everything.

No, as then there is nothing for the settlement and remediation of the harm done.

> No, as then there is nothing for the settlement and remediation of the harm done.

You're the one that invented that dichotomy, so you'll need to support it with more than speculation as a counterargument or admit it's just that.

The US can afford $4 billion in opioid relief efforts on its own (what's the yearly budget at federal and state level already?) so it's not like we're in a position to beg for scraps here. But really there's no reason why there would be nothing left of their fortune after lawyer fees.

More importantly, this stance makes it ok to make a profit this way. They would come out of this with billions of dollars more than they started with and no threat of ever being legally liable again. They should not have that money.

They set up a pharmaceutical empire with thousands of reps pushing disinformation to doctors and patients, they should absolutely have to deal with thousands of lawsuits come home to roost.

> The US can afford $4 billion in opioid relief efforts on its own

Exactly what I was thinking. Go after the Sacklers, relentlessly, as long as it takes, until they have nothing, and hopefully are in jail. The few billions of dollars coming out of this settlement aren't even a rounding error in the US federal budget, we can afford to just pay it ourselves. I'm happy to do that if it means putting the Sacklers behind bars, bankrupt.

Why bother? I have multiple immediate family members that were affected and who aren't capable of coming back from it; I don't think they should get a reward if it means the Sacklers aren't pushed down with them. Doubly so given very few people will be getting anything, anyway.

Sorry about your loss.

There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals. Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families.

>There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals.

Well this is just a self-justifying statement. "Acceptable," "adequately," so many ways to weasel out of assigning any consequences. Let's just discuss how adequate a hypothetical punishment will be in the future that we both definitely know facts about.

>Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families.

Disrespectful to remedy the loss of one or more breadwinners? Disrespectful to prevent descendants from firing up the corporate grill again? I don't know what ethical standard you're using, but it seems to elevate suffering and misfortune.

Disgorgement and prison, the facts bear this out. That they were able to buy their way out of this is more evidence that the nation strives to protect criminals who have money and are white.

No acceptable punishment, maybe not, however, fear can go a long way! Actual fear of _really_ losing all their family wealth, basically everything but the shirt on their back with a lifetime of hard labor to follow is probably a scarier proposition to these kind of scum then death is. On that note, hanging some of them from the rafters may also help deter this kind of parasitic behavior going forward.

Why are we only talking about relieving them of their wealth? Why is capital punishment off the table?

This sounds an awful lot like a "something is better than nothing" fallacy. With the settlement, there is practically zero benefit to anyone who was harmed. Without such a settlement, there is zero benefit to anyone harmed. "Practically zero" being greater than "zero" is worth not punishing literal evil?

These people are still worth billions. You shouldn't get to walk away with billions when you should be rotting in prison for the rest of your life.

Except the only way to get their billions is also to destroy the settlement.

That seems like putting the cart before the horse. Or at least, logically of course the settlement which protects their billions would need to be destroyed.

The US govt doesn't need their billions for the settlement, it's pocket change for the feds. Justice is worth far, far more than a few billion.

> the other option is having the entire thing destroyed and there being nothing left to settle over.

Another option that I’m fond of: send them to jail for a very long time.