Relevant Documents:Consent Order and JudgmentComplaint
Court documents filed today shed further light on McKinsey & Co.’s $573 million opioid settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. The consulting firm has not admitted wrongdoing but has agreed to pay $478.2 million within 60 days of the entry of the judgment, with four payments of $23.9 million to follow in successive years. The settling states would use $558.9 million to remediate harms caused by the opioid epidemic, says a consent order filed in New York state court. A
press release from the New York attorney general notes that the consent order was filed simultaneously by the other settling states.
As for the remaining $15 million of the settlement amount, the funds would go to the National Association of Attorneys General for reimbursement of investigation costs and expenses and to establish “an online repository of opioid industry documents for the benefit of the public.”
The online public disclosures would include nonprivileged documents given to the state attorneys general from 2019 to 2021. The documents include communications between Purdue Pharma and McKinsey related to the consultancy’s work for the company as well as McKinsey’s communications with, or work for, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson and Mallinckrodt related to opioids. Under the order, McKinsey must produce these documents within nine months of the court approval of the settlement.
The states’ investigations of McKinsey delved into the firm’s engagements related to the alleged marketing and promotion of opioids. For instance, the New York attorney general’s complaint alleged that McKinsey sold its marketing ideas to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP “for more than fifteen years, from 2004 to 2019, including before and after Purdue’s 2007 guilty plea for felony misbranding.” The complaint also highlighted other opioid manufacturer clients, including Mallinckrodt and Endo.