Press Release
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Bloomberg, New York.
September 28, 2021.
Judge Robert Drain, Overseer of Mega Bankruptcies, to Retire.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, an acerbic jurist who oversaw high-profile reorganizations including those of Sears Holdings Corp. and Purdue Pharma LP, plans to retire next year.
Drain intends to step down on June 30, 2022, according to a statement. He joined the bench in the Southern District of New York in 2002 after a career in private practice, where he was a partner at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Click here to read the whole article in Bloomberg news.
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New York Times, New York.
September 16, 2021.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved on Thursday to block a bankruptcy plan that grants broad legal immunity to the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, whose drug OxyContin has been at the heart of the nation’s opioid epidemic.
William K. Harrington, the U.S. trustee for the Justice Department, filed a motion in federal court to halt confirmation of the settlement while the department appeals the judge’s decision to approve the deal.
Click here to read the whole article in The New York Times.
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AP News, New York.
September 02, 2021.
Among the families who lost children and other loved ones in the nation’s opioid crisis,
many had held out hope of someday facing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its owners in a courtroom.
That prospect all but vanished Wednesday after a bankruptcy judge conditionally approved a settlement worth an estimated $10 billion. It was a deal that left many of those families feeling they didn’t get what they really wanted.
Click here to read the whole article on AP News.
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The Wall Street Journal, New York.
September 02, 2021.
States Vow to Keep Fighting Purdue Pharma Settlement With Sackler Family
Challenges to the $4.5 billion deal could force a closely followed appeals court to consider the authority of bankruptcy courts to end lawsuits
Click here to read the whole article on The Wall Street Journal.
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New York Post, New York.
September 01, 2021
A federal judge said Wednesday he would approve OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy reorganization plan,
clearing a path to resolve thousands of opioid lawsuits and shielding the company’s wealthy Sackler family owners from future opioid litigation.
Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain said that with small changes he would approve the plan, which overcame opposition to garner support from nearly all states, local governments, tribes, hospitals, and other creditors that voted on the restructuring. They became creditors in the bankruptcy by virtue of suing Purdue and Sackler family members over their alleged contributions to the nationwide opioid epidemic.
Click here to read the whole article on The New York Post.
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CTInsider, Connecticut.
September 01, 2021.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong vowed Wednesday to keep fighting OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s settlement plan
after the judge overseeing its bankruptcy approved the proposal — a framework that the state opposes in large part because of the far-reaching legal protections it provides to the company’s owners.
In a decision that comes nearly two years after Stamford-based Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Judge Robert Drain confirmed a plan that would lead to the company’s dissolution as part of the resolution of several thousand lawsuits alleging the firm fueled the opioid crisis with deceptive OxyContin marketing.
Click here to read the whole article on CTInsider.
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ABC News, New York
.September 01, 2021.
A federal bankruptcy judge gave conditional approval Wednesday
to a sweeping settlement that will remove the Sackler family from ownership of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and devote potentially $10 billion to fighting the opioid crisis that has killed a half-million Americans over the past two decades.
If it withstands appeals, the deal will resolve a mountain of 3,000 lawsuits from state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions and others that accuse the company of helping to spark the overdose epidemic by aggressively marketing the prescription painkiller.
Click here to read the whole article on ABC News.
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Hyperallegic, New York.
August, 09, 2021
A Protest Against Purdue Settlement Transforms Courthouse Landscape Into a Graveyard
“Today, Monday, August 9, the manicured shrubbery at the entrance of the US Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, New York, functioned as a symbolic graveyard. Activists had set up cardboard tombstones bearing the names of individuals who died as a result of opioid-related overdoses and complications. Many of them were grieving their own relatives and friends.
The protesters had gathered at the courthouse where Judge Robert D. Drain has presided over the bankruptcy proceedings of Purdue Pharma. The pharmaceutical giant, owned by the Sackler family, was found guilty of falsely marketing and encouraging over-prescribing of its signature drug, OxyContin, propelling the opioid epidemic that has claimed at least half a million lives in America alone.”
Click here to read the whole article on Hyperallergic.
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Stamford Advocate, Connecticut.
March 12, 2021
800-pound spoon movement leader launches new anti-Purdue demonstration in Stamford
“At Purdue Pharma’s downtown headquarters, a massive, white curtain appeared Friday. The Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” blasted from nearby speakers. Along with it, came a bold message for onlookers.
“FDA’s Dr. Janet Woodcock must go,” reads the curtain in blocky, black letters, surrounding a black-and-white picture of interim FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock.
Connecticut-based artist and activist Fernando Alvarez dropped the latest installment of his Curtains Project — a series of demonstrations that seek to highlight “enablers” of the opioid epidemic — in front of Purdue’s offices. In part, Curtains hopes to “dissuade the Biden administration from nominating Dr. Janet Woodcock for FDA commissioner.”
Click here to read the whole article on The Stamford Advocate.
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