Judge Clears Purdue Pharma’s Restructuring Plan for Vote by Thousands of Claimants

The ruling was a milestone in yearslong efforts to make the OxyContin manufacturer pay for its role in the opioid crisis, but some plaintiffs feel the plan doesn’t go far enough.

A federal bankruptcy judge in New York indicated Wednesday that he would permit Purdue Pharma’s proposal to remake itself as a nonprofit company to be put to a vote by thousands of plaintiffs, who have sued to compel the maker of OxyContin to help pay for the terrible costs of the opioid epidemic.

The restructuring plan is at the centerpiece of an intensely negotiated blueprint for a collective settlement with more than 600,000 claimants who contend that for two decades the company falsely and aggressively marketed its prescription opioid OxyContin as a nonaddictive painkiller, and as a result contributed to hundreds of thousands of opioid-related overdoses and deaths.

Besides protecting the company from further legal action over opioids, the plan includes a blanket release from civil lawsuits for Purdue’s owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family.

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