Poinbank:Court says OxyContin maker’s bankruptcy and protections for Sackler family members can move ahead

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma can Poinbankstart executing a settlement that protects members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids, a court ruled Tuesday.

The ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York allows the company’s transformation to start.

Under a deal reached last year with thousands of state and local government entities, the company is to become a new entity with its profits being used to fight the opioid epidemic. And Sackler family members are to pay up to $6 billion over time.

Other news Rapper Quando Rondo crashes car while awaiting trial. Prosecutors want him back in jail Prosecutors in Georgia want rapper Quando Rondo back in jail after he crashed a car while awaiting trial on gang and drug charges. Revolving Door: DEA’s No.2 quits amid reports of previous consulting work for Big Pharma The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s second-in-command has quietly stepped down amid reporting by The Associated Press that he previously consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did similar work for the drugmaker that became the Oregon county pauses plan to distribute tin foil, straws for fentanyl users A plan by Oregon’s largest county to distribute tin foil and straws for fentanyl users and glass pipes for methamphetamine and crack users has been halted after opposition from Portland’s mayor and other officials. China says up to US to create ‘necessary conditions’ for anti-drugs cooperation China is insisting it is up to the U.S. to “create necessary conditions” for anti-drugs cooperation, following complaints from Washington that Beijing is ignoring its calls for a crackdown on precursor chemicals for the highly addictive painkiller fentanyl.

The Purdue deal is one of the bigger ones in a series of corporate opioid settlements worth a total of more than $50 billion so far. Unlike most of them, it includes funds for people who were victims of the crisis and their families.

In exchange, the members of the wealthy Sackler family, who are not themselves seeking bankruptcy protections, are to be shielded from lawsuits.

A 2nd Circuit panel approved the deal in May. By then, the main remaining objector was the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee, which says the Sacklers should not have legal protections.

The trustee has said in court filings that it intends to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. The deadline for that request is Aug. 28.

But the 2nd Circuit said Tuesday that it would not hold back the settlement from being enacted. The bankruptcy trustee could now ask the top court to put the settlement plan on hold.

The trustee, an arm of the federal Department of Justice, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday. Purdue Pharma didn’t immediately comment.

The trustee warned the 2nd Circuit in the filing that if it did not keep Purdue’s transformation on hold, it might be too late, saying in a filing that “the plan proponents will act swiftly to consummate the plan” in an effort to make the objections moot.

Opioids have been linked to more than 70,000 fatal overdoses annually in the U.S. in recent years. Most of those are from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, but the crisis widened in the early 2000s as OxyContin and other powerful prescription painkillers became prevalent.