[gibolt]

Looks like they got a golden escape hatch.

Sounds like this arm of the company will end up controlled by a government trust. The best outcome would probably be the government running the operation at break even, lowering costs, and heavily regulating how much product it could give to hospitals.

[throwawayjava]

Pierce the veil and go after the family.

[TAForObvReasons]

Not sure why this is downvoted. Shuffling assets and liabilities to protect from bankruptcy proceedings is a common crime and happens every day to companies large and small. The veil can be pierced if it can be established that key people were aware of the situation. Unfortunately it just means this process will be dragged on for years and it is unlikely to recover much from the Sacklers

[grumpydba]

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

[cies]

That's because of the "limited" of private limited.

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

[danmaz74]

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

[cies]

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.

[danmaz74]

I think it all comes down to proving personal involvement with the crimes.

[dsfyu404ed]

>(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.)

[cies]

So you think the climate going to shits is "roughly break even". Some have benefitted a lot from externalized costs wrt climate impact (made billions). And some have benefitted a little (fast transport modes becoming afordable for personal enjoyment).

[smhost]

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.

[0x262d]

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.

[dsfyu404ed]

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.

[gwright]

That isn't a characteristic of "capitalism". Sounds more like a characteristic of any power structure.

[filleokus]

What do you suggest instead?

The possibility to bankrupt a company without losing more than you put into the venture is in my eyes a feature of capitalism, not a bug.

[NeedMoreTea]

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.

[cies]

i suggest that, when a PtLd or publicly traded company gets under criminal investigation, that all trade in shares gets suspended. when a fine/settlement is determined the trade is resumed but the fine is --for the part that cannot be paid in cash-- paid in equity while considering an adjusted valuation (post fine) of the company. This means the shareholders dilute to pay the fine/settlement.

1) the fine needs to be fair to the society (often we see these "slap on the wrist" fines for big corps, that's just disgusting and shows how much our democracies are disfunctional)

2) i suggest this because i want the shareholders to be pushing their companies to ethical behavior.

3) it is very important that companies are also held liable for unethical behavior in other countries, and/or even for unethical behavior of subsidiaries (the foxcons and the likes).

[smhost]

i thought limited liabilites are a recent invention associated with neoliberalization of the 80s.

[Gibbon1]

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

This is why I think the argument that a corporation only has a duty to it's stockholders is rank bullshit.

[cies]

This is why that arguments holds out! They do not have duty to anyone else because of this. And I'm okay with that as long as the stockholders are punished (no silly slap on the wrist style punishments) for crimes of their PtLds, as then the owners will force toe PtLds to have serious ethical standards.

[dragonwriter]

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

Limited liability is directly as and exactly an externalization of costs; that's all that it is.

It's one that evolved hand in hand with capitalism, sure, but if it exists in a non-capitalist system it has the same effect.

[vlan0]

I bet we could easily figure out where they live.

[gwright]

How about we stay away from nasty mob tactics?

[vlan0]

I'm suggesting we launch a mental warfare campaign on the guilty.

The system is bought by folks like these. If you think the system will punish them, then I suggest taking a look at precedence for folks like them. It's not in the favor of the general public.

[simplecomplex]

The best outcome would be directing resources at preventing and treating opioid addiction, not at punishing the drug manufacturer.

[MegaButts]

That just sends the message that the rich can get rich by ruining the lives of however many thousands of people and will just seek new ways to get rich by ruining the lives of however many thousands of people.

[jrochkind1]

I agree with you both.

[jrochkind1]

that is, the important thing is directing resources at preventing and treating opioid addictions and ODs, and if there's any justice the entire Sackler family fortune would be used to do so. Fortunately, these two goals are not in conflict, the Sackler's have a net worth upwards of $13 billion, which would be quite helpful resources to direct at preventing and treating opioid addiction and health effects.

[bilbo0s]

13 billion won't be nearly enough. The damage to people, to families, and to communities has been extensive. And it's a big problem in most counties across all 50 states.

But also the Sacklers are only like 8% of the problem. All the rest of the opioids, (92%), came from other companies. So, theoretically, if we confiscated all of the wealth of all of the owners and stockholders in all of these companies we'd get the money we need to at least ameliorate some of the carnage. Because we'd have at least 90% more than we'd have by just confiscating the Sackler wealth alone.

All that's just theory though. I don't even know if it's possible to hold ownership responsible? Because wouldn't that put people who buy stock in whatever company at risk if the company was doing something sufficiently untoward?

[simplecomplex]

Purdue never prescribed opioids to anyone. They only sold them to hospitals and doctors, after the FDA let them do it. Not sure what message punishing them is supposed to send?

But I get it. Someone dies and it’s the drug dealers fault, and punishing them will make everyone feel better. Except it doesn’t do anything about the actual problem (opioid addiction).

It feels to me like the elation here is because the Sacklers are rich and people really don’t like that, rather than any sort of victory in combating opiate addiction.

[rosser]

Please remember that Purdue were the ones who marketed Oxycontin on the premise of one dose for 12-hour pain relief.

When they learned doctors were prescribing it for eight hours, they tried to "re-train" them to use the "proper" (read: their) dosing recommendation, because there were cheaper drugs with six of eight hour doses.

Sure, the doctors made the prescriptions, but you, and I, and everyone who thinks honestly about it for two and a half seconds realizes that no matter what the recommendation is, enough people who are in bad enough pain to be prescribed oxy will take it when they need it, recommendation be damned, that to have issued that recommendation in the first place was an act of bad faith.

They marketed the drug on a lie in order to get doctors to prescribe it, which fueled — if not created — an epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people. Their hands are not clean, here.

[bilbo0s]

Actually, this makes me think we should be going after doctors too.

[DebtDeflation]

We should be. We should also be going after the distributors who were shipping millions of pills a year to small towns with a population of 6000. This is not an either/or situation, there is plenty of blame to go around.

[buildzr]

> that recommendation in the first place was an act of bad faith.

This seems a bit of a stretch to me.

The doctors prescribed it, even given readily available research, the FDA approved it, knowing full well this was a risk. Those are the guilty parties here. Purdue filled their role just fine, they just happened to be making an opiate and so they're getting chased for it now because China is dumping fentanyl. Pretty ridiculous really.

[simonh]

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?

[luckydata]

You're wrong. Purdue actively misled healthcare professionals and the public about the risks of Oxycontin.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/world-health-organiz...

[Retric]

They lied about the drugs which they actively marketed to doctors.

That’s far more than just manufacturing and opened them up to significantly increased liability.

[loeg]

After 2001?

The lying in marketing, over the period 1995-2001, was already litigated in 2007.

[Retric]

Yes, though they used intermediaries.

https://katherineclark.house.gov/_cache/files/a/a/aaa7536a-6...

[jrochkind1]

The Sackler's $13 billion could be used to do quite a lot about the actual problem.

[bilbo0s]

I think you underestimate the size of the problem.

But again, the Sackler's are only 8% of the problem. So if you go after them, and the owners and stockholders of the companies that provided the other 92% of opioids, and the doctors who wrote the prescriptions in bad faith, you probably come up with an amount of money that could make a dent.

[MegaButts]

I do not believe that Purdue is innocent of anything, and I would love for more evidence to be brought forward to a court of law.

https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/22/abbott-oxycontin-crusade...

[prepend]

The resources from the lawsuits are designated to go toward preventing and treatment of opioid addiction. The purpose of the lawsuits, I think, is not to punish manufacturers but to fund needed health programs.