During the final day of argument in Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy trial, lawyers for the OxyContin maker said its proposed $10 billion settlement of opioid claims is by far the best deal for creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Seeking to convince U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain that Purdue’s proposal is better than a liquidation of the business and free-for-all litigation stampede against itself and its owners, Marshall Huebner of Davis Polk & Wardwell, said the plan would deliver at least $5.5 billion of cash to creditors. The fact that most U.S. states now support the deal rather than pushing to continue their own “speculative” lawsuits shows the deal is sufficient, he added. Still, about 10 state attorneys general are challenging the deal, arguing in large part that they should be able to sue Purdue’s owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, regardless of the settlement. Purdue has said that wouldn’t work, because its owners are requiring broad legal immunity from opioid lawsuits in exchange for more than $4 billion of their own cash, and allowing some states to go forward would cause the entire settlement to unravel. Members of the Sackler family have previously denied any wrongdoing. Reuters reported that Judge Drain expects to rule on Friday on the OxyContin maker’s request to approve its settlement of opioid-related litigation.
