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I could see shielding from future civil liability as an option, but only after a true bankruptcy has occurred. Liquidate everything, and by that I mean everyth

I could see shielding from future civil liability as an option, but only after a true bankruptcy has occurred. Liquidate everything, and by that I mean everything, and then you can move on with your life. Definitely no shielding money in offshore accounts. If you're not willing to do that ... well, see you in court. Over and over, because every individual you hurt should have a chance to come at you with a liability claim.

chasil 2y ago
One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States. Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law. "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out."
- lycopodiopsida 2y ago
  The US are proud of getting some terrorist in the middle of Pakistan or putting pressure on whistleblowers internationally but when big money is involved getting a criminal scumbag responsible for ~1m deaths is suddenly a huge problem.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Listen, we can't spend like we did going after Julian Assange on this. It's just business people doing business.
    - wmf 2y ago
      El Chapo is crying.
      - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        El Chapo was free to form a corporation and then create an indemnification agreement between that company and himself. That he chose not to is on him.
- csdreamer7 2y ago
  > "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out." I understand your point, but basically they are saying: "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." Can you imagine a member of Congress or the President saying this? Forgoing immunity is a scorched earth tactic, but it is also one that will dissuade future abusers. We have those overseas money reporting laws that make it difficult for Americans to get bank accounts overseas. Let's use them!
  - sillywalk 2y ago
    > "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > Can you imagine a member of Congress or the President saying this? Yes.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Well, we haven't gotten to that part just yet. Right now, we're still in the stage of deny deny deny even in the face of evidence and convictions. They are still in the deny stage.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    > "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > We have those overseas money reporting laws that make it difficult for Americans to get bank accounts overseas. Let's use them! This is conflating two things. It is not criminal to move money offshore, and nothing suggested any money laundering occurred, because it is not necessary to launder money to move it offshore. And it is also not money laundering to obfuscate money's origin or destination. Money laundering requires a criminal origin and then obfuscation. Despite how much the US has convinced its entire culture to stigmatize the concept of moving money, the US is operating in its own bubble of hubris to suggest money has to stay within its ecosystem. It doesn't make any sense at all when you say it out loud does it? To your second point, the US has reporting laws on money held offshore legally, for US citizens. For banks, this is merely an additional compliance burden that disincentivizes them from dealing with small accounts because its not worth it. But at Sackler money, it is worth it. It is not hard to find someone to bank you as an American. And at Sackler levels of money you don't have to remain a US citizen, hence absolving the reporting requirements if they went that direction. Or when you have a second citizenship, you can just not tell the US about it, and you can just not tell the foreign bank about your US citizenship. Prosecute that on its own, if you find out. and finally, there are gaps in this reporting framework. FATCA treaty was a broad expansion of a country's power, to the limit of our global society in the continuum of history. And its not completely as omnipresent as the American psyche imagined. Just like the global sanctions attempt on Russia showed, its a nice try but now everyone can see how much is hubris in plain sight.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an enormous amount of influence in the financial sector in other western nations, so we could at least make their lives less lavish and comfortable. Throwing up our hands and declaring it an unsolvable issue just encourages others to misbehave and then escape the same way.
  - nickff 2y ago
    The question is whether to allow a smaller settlement immediately, or pursue a less-likely and possibly larger set of judgements in the future. It's not clear that it is possible to get more money out of them.
    - hyeonwho4 2y ago
      The EPA values one human life at $10M. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed by the Sackler family's companies (testified in court) was ~~245,000~~ Edit: probably at least 100,000, see below. So if opiates were environmental pollutants, the Sacklers would be on the hook for $1T in damages. Their immediate settlement was $6B. Roughly three orders of magnitude too small.
      - richwater 2y ago
        Attributing every single opioid overdose to solely the Sackler family is so laughably ludicrous it's hard to take this comment seriously.
        ygjb 2y ago
        ok, so now you are just arguing percentages. What is an appropriate amount of the harm to be apportioned to the Sackler family?
        hyeonwho4 2y ago
        The number of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021 was 645,000, according to CDC. Purdue Pharma brought in $35B in OxyContin revenue from 1995 to 2017. OxyContin was prescribed to 6.2 million people in 2002. I'll edit the number above to ~100,000 as an estimate of the number of victims, since it looks like I misremembered 645,000 as the number of Purdue-related deaths. Still, that's assuming only 1.6% of those 6.2 million people taking OxyContin in 2002 developed an addiction, which seems low.
- soperj 2y ago
  Didn't stop them with Julian Assange or Kim Dotcom, and these people are actually evil.
brookst 2y ago
I think you're mixing up the Purdue bankruptcy and individual, personal bankruptcies for the Sacklers. This case was about the corporate bankruptcy.

chasil 2y ago

One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States. Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law. "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out."

lycopodiopsida 2y ago
The US are proud of getting some terrorist in the middle of Pakistan or putting pressure on whistleblowers internationally but when big money is involved getting a criminal scumbag responsible for ~1m deaths is suddenly a huge problem.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Listen, we can't spend like we did going after Julian Assange on this. It's just business people doing business.
  - wmf 2y ago
    El Chapo is crying.
    - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
      El Chapo was free to form a corporation and then create an indemnification agreement between that company and himself. That he chose not to is on him.
csdreamer7 2y ago
> "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out." I understand your point, but basically they are saying: "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." Can you imagine a member of Congress or the President saying this? Forgoing immunity is a scorched earth tactic, but it is also one that will dissuade future abusers. We have those overseas money reporting laws that make it difficult for Americans to get bank accounts overseas. Let's use them!
- sillywalk 2y ago
  > "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > Can you imagine a member of Congress or the President saying this? Yes.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Well, we haven't gotten to that part just yet. Right now, we're still in the stage of deny deny deny even in the face of evidence and convictions. They are still in the deny stage.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  > "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > We have those overseas money reporting laws that make it difficult for Americans to get bank accounts overseas. Let's use them! This is conflating two things. It is not criminal to move money offshore, and nothing suggested any money laundering occurred, because it is not necessary to launder money to move it offshore. And it is also not money laundering to obfuscate money's origin or destination. Money laundering requires a criminal origin and then obfuscation. Despite how much the US has convinced its entire culture to stigmatize the concept of moving money, the US is operating in its own bubble of hubris to suggest money has to stay within its ecosystem. It doesn't make any sense at all when you say it out loud does it? To your second point, the US has reporting laws on money held offshore legally, for US citizens. For banks, this is merely an additional compliance burden that disincentivizes them from dealing with small accounts because its not worth it. But at Sackler money, it is worth it. It is not hard to find someone to bank you as an American. And at Sackler levels of money you don't have to remain a US citizen, hence absolving the reporting requirements if they went that direction. Or when you have a second citizenship, you can just not tell the US about it, and you can just not tell the foreign bank about your US citizenship. Prosecute that on its own, if you find out. and finally, there are gaps in this reporting framework. FATCA treaty was a broad expansion of a country's power, to the limit of our global society in the continuum of history. And its not completely as omnipresent as the American psyche imagined. Just like the global sanctions attempt on Russia showed, its a nice try but now everyone can see how much is hubris in plain sight.
rootusrootus 2y ago
Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an enormous amount of influence in the financial sector in other western nations, so we could at least make their lives less lavish and comfortable. Throwing up our hands and declaring it an unsolvable issue just encourages others to misbehave and then escape the same way.
- nickff 2y ago
  The question is whether to allow a smaller settlement immediately, or pursue a less-likely and possibly larger set of judgements in the future. It's not clear that it is possible to get more money out of them.
  - hyeonwho4 2y ago
    The EPA values one human life at $10M. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed by the Sackler family's companies (testified in court) was ~~245,000~~ Edit: probably at least 100,000, see below. So if opiates were environmental pollutants, the Sacklers would be on the hook for $1T in damages. Their immediate settlement was $6B. Roughly three orders of magnitude too small.
    - richwater 2y ago
      Attributing every single opioid overdose to solely the Sackler family is so laughably ludicrous it's hard to take this comment seriously.
      - ygjb 2y ago
        ok, so now you are just arguing percentages. What is an appropriate amount of the harm to be apportioned to the Sackler family?
      - hyeonwho4 2y ago
        The number of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021 was 645,000, according to CDC. Purdue Pharma brought in $35B in OxyContin revenue from 1995 to 2017. OxyContin was prescribed to 6.2 million people in 2002. I'll edit the number above to ~100,000 as an estimate of the number of victims, since it looks like I misremembered 645,000 as the number of Purdue-related deaths. Still, that's assuming only 1.6% of those 6.2 million people taking OxyContin in 2002 developed an addiction, which seems low.
soperj 2y ago
Didn't stop them with Julian Assange or Kim Dotcom, and these people are actually evil.

brookst 2y ago

I think you're mixing up the Purdue bankruptcy and individual, personal bankruptcies for the Sacklers. This case was about the corporate bankruptcy.