Ultimately, it does not answer a key question for investigators — how much the Sacklers are actually worth and where their money is located. It could be used to support allegations as to whether the Sacklers intentionally withdrew large annual sums to shield the money from litigation as legal pressures mounted. The audit notes that in the first dozen years that OxyContin was approved — from 1995 through 2007 — Purdue’s payouts to the Sacklers totaled just $1.32 billion; from 2008 through 2017, the period of intense scrutiny by the auditors, the payments totaled $10.7 billion. By 2017, the Sacklers had voted to stop taking cash payments and so Purdue ended the practice. During the years covered by the audit, the report says, Purdue paid $4.1 billion to the Sacklers, $1.6 billion to their affiliated companies and $4.6 billion for taxes.

Source: New York Times December 16, 2019 22:49 UTC