STAT+: Sacklers withdrew cash from Purdue over opioid lawsuit fears, documents show
In recent weeks, different members of the Sackler family that controls Purdue Pharma maintained they did not foresee the massive amount of lawsuits that would blame their company its role in the opioid crisis. And for this reason, they have argued that the billions of dollars withdrawn from Purdue over the past decade were not fraudulent distributions to hide money.
For instance, a document filed two months ago by some Sackler family members argued “there were a very small number of lawsuits targeting Purdue before 2017… Purdue had more than enough cash to resolve the matters it… faced [dating back to 2008]. The risk of the immense wave of litigation that began later—by plaintiffs who had not yet even identified themselves— was simply unfathomable.” (see page 8).
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