Wait, WHAT? As it stands, the Sackler family will pay $4.3 billion to victims of their lethal drug OxyContin (and to the victims’ lawyers) but are being protected by a U.S. bankruptcy judge from having to fight further civil suits—without even having to declare bankruptcy.
The Sackler deal reached last month makes about as much sense as Adam Neumann’s getting paid $1.7 billion just for walking away from the smoking rubble he made of WeWork. Or the hypocrisy of all those world leaders and C.E.O.’s who were nailed in the so-called Pandora Papers for evading billions of dollars in taxes. (Everyone knows the Cayman Islands are a good place to park undeclared income; turns out, so is South Dakota.)
