Purdue Pharma offers to settle lawsuits after meeting with state attorney generals

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its multi-billionaire owners have offered to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits from US states and cities overnight.

The Connecticut-based company, which has been held responsible for causing America's opioid crisis, has offered to settle the suits for $10bn-12bn following confidential conversations and discussions between its lawyers and ten state attorneys general and plaintiffs from some of the hundreds of cities and counties that had sued the group at a meeting in Cleveland last week, according to NBC.

The deal was also said to include the Sackler family giving up ownership of the business and using $3bn of its own personal fortune to cover the settlement, according to the New York Times. Following this, the deal will include a bankruptcy agreement, which will turn the company into a public benefit trust and funnel profits to plaintiffs.

While Purdue opted for a $270m settlement in a case brought against it by the state of Oklahoma earlier in the year, the same case which saw giant Johnson & Johnson slapped with a $572m fine on Monday, it still faces civil court cases in Massachusetts, New York and numerous other states, and a multi-district case in federal court in Cleveland that brings together suits by almost 2,000 cities and counties.

The first trials in the Cleveland case were set to start in October, with lawyers for Purdue, its owners and other companies already in talks for months as part of an effort to reach a settlement.