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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#271

Post by DANmode »

lupusreal wrote: post #172
inasio wrote: post #112

Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can al…

Lawyers are fixated on the money for obvious reasons, but the money will never really fix what the Sacklers did (particularly for the many victims who are now dead.) Restitution is largely a farce and we should be focusing on retribution.

Removing the profitability angle mildly dissuades this sort of behavior in the future.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#273

Post by dylan604 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #209
chasil wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States. Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law. "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were…

Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an enormous amount of influence in the financial sector in other western nations, so we could at least make their lives less lavish and comfortable. Throwing up our hands and declaring it an unsolvable issue just encourages others to misbehave and then escape the s…

If we can seize Russian oligarch's money, why could the US Gov't not seize assets of a US citizen even if living abroad?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#274

Post by dylan604 »

sillywalk wrote: post #248
csdreamer7 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out." I understand your point, but basically they are saying: "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion an…

> "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > Can you imagine a member of Congress or the President saying this? Yes.

Well, we haven't gotten to that part just yet. Right now, we're still in the stage of deny deny deny even in the face of evidence and convictions. They are still in the deny stage.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#275

Post by diob »

legitster wrote: post #199
richbell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know of no other way to read this other than lock away people because they are rich whether they are guilty or not. Is there a reason you omitted the first sentence from that quote?

The first sentence didn't contain his rationale?

You're attacking a strawman, try steelmanning the argument to "rich people who commit crimes should go to jail every now and then". I think we can all agree.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#276

Post by mulmen »

notoriousdel wrote: post #198
nickff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic." And to that end, the USA must demonstrate that it's totalitarian and abuses people's rights?

[flagged]

There’s a big difference between:

> We should put rich people in jail to prove we can.

And

> We should put guilty people in jail even if they are rich.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#278

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

legitster wrote: post #179

I find the Supreme court decisions to be fascinating reads and overall much more interesting and complicated than most news services make them out to be.

Especially since this 5-4 decision didn't follow the "conservative" or "liberal" split at all.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#279

Post by dang »

ein0p wrote: post #129

There will be people like Sacklers until we start putting them away and throwing away the key. We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic.

We detached this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40811921.

It's best to avoid generic tangents in HN threads, especially generic flamewar tangents. They tend to make discussion more repetitive and therefore more tedious and eventually more nasty. This particular one has been repeated hundreds if not thousands of times in the past.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#280

Post by shawndrost »

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids.

I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous.

I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-is. Which is, I think, the conclusion from this settlement. If this is you, can you help me understand? Do you think there is/was a realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely?

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