Vermont and New Hampshire are not signing onto a tentative opioid-crisis settlement reached between a number of states and the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.
New Hampshire Associate Attorney General James Boffetti said in a statement that the tentative agreement “does not sufficiently hold the Sackler family, who bear significant responsibility for this opioid crisis, accountable.”
Nearly half the states and some 2,000 local governments have agreed to a tentative settlement with Purdue Pharma over the toll of the nation’s opioid crisis.
Purdue would file for a structured bankruptcy and pay as much as $12 billion, with about $3 billion coming from the Sackler family. The family would have to give up its ownership of the company.
Boffetti called it a “bad deal for the people of New Hampshire who have been hardest hit by the opioid crisis.”
Vermont’s Attorney General TJ Donovan also spoke out against the deal, saying in a statement Thursday that the value of the settlement isn’t fully guaranteed.
The deal is expected to lead to an expected bankruptcy filing. Donovan said he doesn’t believe that going to bankruptcy court “to create and spin-off a new, public benefit company is in the public’s interest.”
He said he would prefer to shut down the company, sell its assets and put the proceeds to use “helping Vermonters whose lives have been ruined.”
“I want to be sure that billionaires can’t use bankruptcy court as a vehicle to avoid accountability,” Donovan said in the statement.
“I believe in due process. I believe in the rule of law. But I also believe that the story needs to be told about how this epidemic started. For those reasons, Vermont rejected the settlement offer and will continue to fight on behalf of Vermonters.”