In numbers: Sackler family, Purdue Pharma and the US opioid crisis

The Sacklers have become one of the world's most controversial families.

They are the owners of Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company that produces the opioid painkiller OxyContin.

As a result, the family has been accused of fuelling a deadly opioid crisis in the US that has killed more than 200,000 people in two decades.

Purdue and the Sacklers have denied allegations in lawsuits that they contributed to the opioid crisis, and have pointed to heroin and fentanyl as more significant culprits than prescription painkillers.

The family has also long been known for philanthropy, with museum wings, galleries and even escalators across the world named after them. read more »

Would a Purdue Bankruptcy Protect the Sacklers? Good Question.

Here’s what the OxyContin maker’s Chapter 11 filing means and doesn’t mean.

After months of negotiations and threats, Purdue Pharma has finally filed for bankruptcy. But it’s hardly a done deal.

The bankruptcy filing is part of a settlement agreement that the company and its owners negotiated with lawyers for states and thousands of local governments that have struggled for years with the opioid crisis. They support the deal because it offers guaranteed cash and an end to litigation.

But the plan has been greeted with scathing condemnation by some state attorneys general and others who assert that it allows Purdue, the maker of OxyContin, and its owners, the billionaire Sackler family, to get off cheaply and without an admission of wrongdoing.

The deal, they say, will be neither speedy enough nor sufficiently lucrative to begin to redress the harms of the opioid crisis. read more »

Two Broker-Dealers to Pay $4.65 Million in Penalties for Providing Deficient Blue Sheet Data

he Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc. has agreed to pay $2.7 million and BMO Capital Markets Corp. has agreed to pay $1.95 million to settle charges for providing incomplete and inaccurate securities trading information to the SEC. Broker-dealers are required to provide the information known as "blue sheet data," which the SEC uses to carry out its enforcement and regulatory obligations, including investigations of insider trading and other fraudulent activity. read more »

SEC Charges Prudential Subsidiaries For Misleading Funds They Advised, Generating Tens of Millions in Tax Benefits for Prudential

SEC Charges Prudential Subsidiaries For Misleading Funds They Advised, Generating Tens of Millions in Tax Benefits for Prudential

According to the SEC's order, Prudential subsidiaries AST Investment Services Inc. and PGIM Investments LLC (PI) served as investment advisers to 94 insurance-dedicated mutual funds. The order finds that in 2006, the funds were reorganized so that Prudential could receive certain tax benefits. Those benefits to Prudential, however, came with negative consequences to the funds. First, AST and PI cost the funds tens of millions of dollars in interest income when they temporarily recalled securities the funds had out on loan. AST and PI did not disclose, to the funds' boards of trustees or the beneficial owners of the funds' shares, the conflict of interest between Prudential and the funds in connection with the recalls.  Second, the funds' reorganization subjected them to less favorable tax treatment in certain foreign jurisdictions, but Prudential did not timely reimburse the funds for resulting losses despite AST and PI's assurances it would do so. read more »