Sackler family won't settle unless freed from opioid suits, heir tells judge

Members of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma won't contribute billions of dollars to a legal settlement unless they get off the hook for all current and future lawsuits over the company's activities, one of them told a court Tuesday in a rare public appearance.

David Sackler, grandson of one of the brothers who nearly 70 years ago bought the company that later became Purdue, testified at a hearing in federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, New York, that without those protections, "I believe we would litigate the claims to their final outcomes." "We need a release that's sufficient to get our goals accomplished," Sackler said in response to questions from a lawyer for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee. "If the release fails to do that, we will not support it."