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Over the past month in a southeast Georgia courtroom, three generations of families testified about how their lives had been savaged by addiction to prescription opioids, the New York Times reported. It was the first lawsuit to come to trial brought by individual victims of the opioid epidemic against pharmaceutical companies. On Wednesday afternoon, the victims lost. After deliberating barely a day and a half, the jury found that the companies — two of the country’s largest medical distributors, McKesson and Cardinal Health, and a third regional one — were not liable. The plaintiffs — 21 relatives from six families — had filed suit under a rarely used state law that permits relatives of people addicted to drugs to sue drug dealers. The outcome of the case underscores a startling reality. The pharmaceutical industry has committed more than $50 billion so far to settle lawsuits over its role in the opioid epidemic, but the families of people who died or who still struggle with addiction have gotten almost none of it. The money pledged by manufacturers (like Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson), distributors (AmerisourceBergen as well as McKesson and Cardinal) and national pharmacy chains (like CVS and Walgreens) is earmarked for prevention and treatment programs in the states, municipalities and tribes that filed thousands of opioid-related cases. Those cases were propped up to a large degree by the suffering and statistics of families hit by the opioid crisis.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday allowed victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre to retain a forensic financial investigator to dig into the finances of bankrupt right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who for years falsely claimed that the shooting was a hoax, Reuters reported. Jones and his company Free Speech Systems have been found liable for $1.5 billion in two defamation trials over lies that Jones spread about the deadly elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The Sandy Hook families said that they need specialized assistance to review Jones' assets, income, and ability to pay those verdicts. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston yesterday approved the families' request to retain Nardello & Co., which is providing its services on a pro bono basis. Jones's attorney, Vickie Driver, told Judge Lopez that Jones has had some difficulty in providing complete financial reports to the bankruptcy court. Jones filed preliminary financial statements earlier in February, but listed several trusts that held unknown assets. "We are trying to locate every single trust and figure out what every single trust owns, and we are starting to get to what I would consider the final layers of the onion," Driver said in court. Jones filed for personal bankruptcy in December, saying he could afford to pay less than 1% of the judgments handed down in two Sandy Hook defamation trials. Judge Lopez will decide in March if Jones has to face a third Sandy Hook defamation trial.

Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges on Tuesday, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors' investigation into FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Reuters reported. "I am unbelievably sorry for my role in all of this," Singh said, adding that he knew by mid-2022 that Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, was borrowing FTX customer funds, and customers were not aware. Singh said that he would forfeit proceeds from the scheme. Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder, pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges filed against him in December. Prosecutors say he stole billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda. He has acknowledged inadequate risk management, but says he did not steal funds. Singh, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, three counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by violating campaign finance laws.

Crypto derivatives platform LedgerX, one of the few solvent pieces of the bankrupt FTX empire, will no longer use embattled Silvergate Bank to receive domestic wire transfers beginning Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. The company will use Signature Bank going forward, according to an email LedgerX sent to customers that was reviewed and verified by Bloomberg. LedgerX already had an existing relationship with Signature, according to two of the people who confirmed the email. In a statement, Signature Bank said that “While we can’t comment on specific clients, we are still in the business of holding digital asset deposits.” The bank disclosed in December that it was reducing its exposure to the sector, though not completely. FTX US, the American affiliate of FTX, completed its acquisition of LedgerX in October 2021, more than a year before the crypto exchange’s shocking descent into bankruptcy. LedgerX is registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and was an important part of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s push to gain power and influence in Washington. The platform previously sought approval from the CFTC to clear crypto derivatives trades without intermediaries, but withdrew its controversial application after FTX imploded.

HyreCar Inc., a publicly traded car-sharing platform, has filed for bankruptcy, partly blaming mounting legal fees from numerous lawsuits and investigations, including Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission probes into insider stock trading, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. HyreCar stock closed down 83% to 2 cents a share Monday. Its shares peaked at roughly $24 in June 2021. The Los Angeles-based company, which earlier this month warned that it might file for bankruptcy, has total assets of $16.5 million and total debts, all unsecured, of $18.4 million. The money is owed to trade creditors, its landlord and others. Last week it provided written notice to its landlord that it was ending its lease since all of its 59 employees have been working remotely. Holmes Motors Inc., which is affiliated with an equity owner who recently took a stake in the business, is offering to provide up to $5 million in bankruptcy financing, including $3.1 million on an interim basis. It will also serve as lead bidder in a sale process with a starting offer of roughly $7.8 million.

Toronto-Dominion Bank on Friday agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle claims stemming from the Canadian bank’s involvement in the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by convicted swindler R. Allen Stanford, resolving nearly all outstanding litigation related to the fraud, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Michigan-based Independent Bank and London-based HSBC Holdings PLC also reached settlements on Friday, following deals struck last month by Société Générale SA of Paris and Trustmark National Bank of Jackson, Miss. The deals reached this year totaled more than $1.6 billion, pending court approval, according to lawyers representing the court-appointed receiver in the case. The receiver also recouped more than $1.1 billion through previous litigation, bringing the total amount of potential recoveries to more than $2.7 billion, proceeds that will go toward making restitution to victims of the fraud. Stanford Financial Group, now defunct, was a financial-services company that operated until it was seized by U.S. authorities in early 2009. Its former chairman, Mr. Stanford, was convicted in 2012 of running a two-decade investment-fraud scheme amounting to $7 billion, one of the largest frauds in U.S. history. He was sentenced to 110 years in prison.

The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento could go bankrupt as it faces hundreds of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of minors, according to a letter from Bishop Jaime Soto, KCRA.com reported. "I am committed to resolving all claims as fairly as possible," Soto said in the letter. "Given the number of claims that have been presented, however, resolving them may overwhelm the diocese's finances available to satisfy such claims. This financial challenge is unlike anything we have faced before. I must consider what options are available to us, should the diocese become insolvent." The letter sent to the community on Sunday explains that the more than 200 lawsuits were filed because of a California law that removes the time limit for filing child sex abuse claims. Before Assembly Bill 218 passed in 2018, people had three years from the time of the reported abuse before it would be barred from consideration in a court. A spokesperson for the diocese said 234 claimants filed suits, mostly against clergy. There were also an additional 42 claims related to Boy Scout troops chartered by parishes in the diocese, bringing the total to 276 claims total. Soto said the Diocese of Sacramento's situation was featured in the March/April issue of the Catholic Herald magazine. The Diocese of Sacramento is one of the multiple other dioceses in Northern California facing civil claims that are being overseen in a special proceeding by a judge in Alameda County.

Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new criminal charges on Thursday, in an expanded indictment accusing the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to make more than 300 illegal political donations, Reuters reported, Reuters reported. Bankman-Fried now faces 12 criminal charges, including four for fraud and eight for conspiracy, up from eight charges in an earlier indictment, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, his crypto-focused hedge fund. The new charges add to pressure on the 30-year-old former billionaire, who has seen two of his former top lieutenants plead guilty. Bankman-Fried is also trying to stay out of jail, after his online activity since his arrest prompted a federal judge to signal a willingness to revoke his $250 million bail package. His trial is slated for October.

Sam Bankman-Fried is resisting efforts to make him testify in the bankruptcy case of the digital asset lender Voyager Digital Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. Lawyers for the co-founder of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed causing billions of dollars in losses, asked a federal judge in California Tuesday to block a subpoena from lawyers representing unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy case underway in New York. The subpoena calls for Bankman-Fried to appear in person Feb. 23 at the San Francisco offices of McDermott Will & Emery to answer questions, and it included 49 separate and wide-ranging document requests to be turned over by Feb. 20. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Marc R. Lewis, argued the subpoena should be quashed because it wasn’t properly served, it’s unreasonable, and it may require the FTX chief executive officer to invoke his Fifth Amendment constitutional right to avoid incriminating himself. The subpoena was delivered to Bankman-Fried’s mother at his parents’ house in California, but Sam wasn’t there because he was attending a bail hearing in his New York criminal case, according to the filing. Alameda Research Ltd., Bankman-Fried’s defunct crypto trading house, is attempting to claw back about $446 million from Voyager Digital. The funds are related to cryptocurrency loans Voyager provided to Alameda before Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July.