Mediator: Sacklers willing to pay more in Purdue settlement

The objecting states said the earlier amount of $4.5 billion did not go far enough to hold accountable members of a family that made billions from the sale of OxyContin.

Advocates for opioid victims and their families were concerned about where the additional money would go. Ryan Hampton, an advocate for people with opioid use disorder, said it did not appear that the $750 million set aside for payments to victims of the crisis and their families would increase under the latest proposal.

“The government’s pot will continue to get larger as additional settlement negotiations may continue, yet there’s no increase for direct payments to families and survivors,” Hampton said. “It’s dead wrong and unjust.”

According to the report by the mediator, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Shelley Chapman, any new deal would be contingent on having all the holdout states and the District of Columbia agree to it. She said a “supermajority” have agreed so far, but did not list which are still holding out.

State attorneys general offices contacted Friday by The Associated Press declined comment or did not respond. A spokeswoman for one branch of the Sackler family also declined to comment, while a representative for the other side did not respond.

In a statement, Purdue said it remains “focused on achieving our goal of providing urgently needed funds to the American people for opioid crisis abatement.”