I hope they intervene here and or follow up with criminal charges against the individual Sacklers as individuals.

DoJ can't (except in special circumstances) legally stand in the place of harmed individuals and go after liable actors; because this a bankruptcy case DoJ is involved though, and opposes the settlement, as stated in the article.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/holder-big-banks-...

I also remember reading a book about epo and J&J. There the situation also was that the government prosecutors were reluctant to touch the case because they knew J&J would outspend them with their lawyers. Then a private lawyer took on the case and after years reached a settlement but in the process was close to bankrupting his law firm.

Veey easily if you are a big corp and its an existential threat; the DoJ has lots of funding, sure, but also lots of competing priorities.

I am not disputing the existence of the general phenomenon, I am saying the facts of the immediate case (including those directly in the article) contradict the assertion that it is the factor responsible for the decision at issue in the case under discussion.