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Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

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131–140 of 196 posts

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#131
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a feature when it's good faith efforts. It's very clearly a bug when it's used to evade no end of abuse, illegality and fraud, or to avoid paying the pollution cleanup. There probably needs to be some exceptional way in law to pierce the shell of limited liability and go after officers, perhaps even claw back from investors and shareholders.

Limited liability only protects the capital of the shareholders , it doesn't protect the management of the company against criminal prosecution. (In practice, however, managers are only rarely put in jail, both because it's notoriously difficult to prove white-collar crime (except in few cases, like insider trading, which are the pursued with extra vigor), and because CEOs are generally rich and well connected... but…

Perhaps I could have expressed it better. I meant to go for the financials. There are countless cases where the factory or mine has declined and instead of cleaning it up, as promised, they shutter the company. Then there's the countless cases where the company is doing something illegal. Take the proceeds back.

We take money earned from theft and drug dealing, we take the stolen car from the person who innocently bought it. There's an offence of receiving stolen property. We don't take the millions from the execs who made millions pushing pharmaceuticals illegally, or the nuclear plant CEO and shareholder that has now, by dint of closure, given the job of decommissioning to the state - i.e. all of us. Once in a blue moon there's a criminal prosecution, but they just about always manage to stay wealthy.

We need to rethink the limits of limited liability as it's become a convenient shield to hide all sorts of unethical, shitty and outright illegal behaviour behind.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#132
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those people started on prescription opiates?

Tl;dr: About 80% of heroin users started on prescription opioids. This sounds bad, but actually the conversion rate from opioid on-label use to abuse is pretty low and the conversion from pill abuse to heroin is even lower. * Rate of conversion from on-label opioid prescription to addiction ("opioid use disorder") is lowish; this metastudy[1] claims 8-12% on average, but the 95% CI is anywhere from 3-17% and I'm not…

That magic wand is allowing doctors to prescribe safe opiates to addicts, providing safe places they can use, and providing support and means to quit. It's not magic. Many places around the world are doing it. Eliminate the black market and you eliminate those deaths. Our government and society are simply not interested in eliminating those deaths. Places like Portugal, Switzerland, Vancouver bc have been waving that magic wand for decades.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#133
post #127
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company is going bankrupt, so the effective "fine" to the shareholders is 100% of their equity. That's the point - "limited liability" just means it can't be more than 100% of equity.

Good point. I should have added: 4) When the fine is larger than the company's worth, collect it from the shareholders.

Then noone would invest. Don't forget that often "shareholders" are index funds, pensioners, school endowments...

No, the correct solution already exists - the criminal justice system going after criminals that did crime - it just doesn't work very well (especially when criminals are rich - e.g. Epstein - no need for "limited liability company").

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#134
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limited liability only protects the capital of the shareholders , it doesn't protect the management of the company against criminal prosecution. (In practice, however, managers are only rarely put in jail, both because it's notoriously difficult to prove white-collar crime (except in few cases, like insider trading, which are the pursued with extra vigor), and because CEOs are generally rich and well connected... but…

Perhaps I could have expressed it better. I meant to go for the financials. There are countless cases where the factory or mine has declined and instead of cleaning it up, as promised, they shutter the company. Then there's the countless cases where the company is doing something illegal. Take the proceeds back. We take money earned from theft and drug dealing, we take the stolen car from the person who innocently bo…

I have always thought there should be a law that funds for things like mine clearup and pensions should be paid as the debt is incurred, and locked up so there's no way for the company to get at it.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#135
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After all they are responsible for thousands of deaths. And they knew it. I don't know why they aren't in jail already.

That's because of the "limited" of private limited. (Under capitalism) many costs of having PtLds are externalized.

>(Under capitalism) many costs of having PtLds are externalized.

I'd wager that at a societal level we roughly break even +/- a little bit in either direction. For every mega-corp abusing their legal status there's a few thousand small and medium businesses that do not have to worry (as much) about being sued into oblivion by some ambulance chaser over something that is not the result of malice. (I'm speaking about various private liability limiting corporate structures in general here.)

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#136
post #108
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that inherent? i haven't read Capital, but this doesn't seem so much of an inherent problem with capitalism than it seems like a very dumb implementation liability protection.

what capital says is that under capitalism, the ruling class will continually set up dumb rules, such as this one, in their favor, and they have a structural advantage in doing so, so are increasingly successful at it until it provokes revolt.

They'll do that under any system (you can find examples in basically all of recorded history). The people on top always try to use their power to put in rules to stay on top. I'm not convinced they somehow do it more or are more capable of doing it under capitalism than they were under the 18th century monarchies or socialism of the USSR and its satellite states or any of the other societal structures that have come and gone.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#137
post #115
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the congressional report: “Purdue Pharma used front organizations and sponsored research to deceive the World Health Organization and corrupt global public health policies” If that is true and public policy was corruptly manipulated , how can you claim that this is all ok because it was allowed by public policy?

I do not agree with him, but I think you're making a much more salient point indirectly. Public policy that can be readily manipulated by bad actors (as the drug industry is certainly full of) should not be used as the final say for anything. Systems need to be able to tolerate: corruption, false information, and true but misleading information. Our regulatory systems in general seem to struggle with any of the above…

[deleted]

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#138
post #133
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I should have added: 4) When the fine is larger than the company's worth, collect it from the shareholders.

Then noone would invest. Don't forget that often "shareholders" are index funds, pensioners, school endowments... No, the correct solution already exists - the criminal justice system going after criminals that did crime - it just doesn't work very well (especially when criminals are rich - e.g. Epstein - no need for "limited liability company").

there are so many ways a huge corp can commit crimes while individuals can all use the "plausible deniability" card. also often the crime is committed by the company as a whole, while no individual did something wrong.

> Then noone would invest.

i disagree, you just only invest in ethically sound endeavours. and thats exactly what im trying to achieve by my suggestions. starve bad-business from investment and/or people willing to take ownership. and make investors also do dilligence on the ethical side, instead of only an assessment of books+team+product+market.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We spent the better part of decade catching and locking up doctors who prescribed opioids out of guidelines, so much so that doctors are now terrified of prescribing them to people who legitimately need them. The problem is that the prescribing guidelines, which were written by the pharmaceutical companies themselves, described a regimen that would get pretty much anyone physically addicted to their product. So you h…

Shouldn't the FDA be checking whether the guidelines written by the pharmaceutical companies are safe?

The guidelines are almost always on the conservative side of safe because people who died as a result of taking the medication the manufacturer recommended way turn into slam dunk lawsuits. Part of the reason the opioid problem flew under the radar is because people got hooked and weren't dying until they OD'd so it never came back to bite the manufacturer. What are the odds of another opioid type situation? What else could the FDA do with those resources?

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#140
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because of the "limited" of private limited. (Under capitalism) many costs of having PtLds are externalized.

"limited" limits the amount of money investors can lose. It doesn't protect from criminal liability.

sorry have non-managing owners ever been targeted for crimes committed by their PtLds? nope they have not. and how about "personal business", yes, they are always targeted.

this is a big differences... I think tomp is explaining this difference somewhere in this thread.

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