Elizabeth Burch, a professor in the School of Law, was recently quoted in a Bloomberg article about opioid settlement costs for Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp.
The U.S. corporations agreed to pay billions of dollars after being accused of contributing to the opioid crisis.
Two other companies, McKesson Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, reached a deal last year to resolve the claims that totaled $26 billion. The settlement hasn’t been announced because some details are still being evaluated, but if approved, it’ll be one of the largest corporate settlements in history.
“The old saying is, nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like billions of dollars,” Burch said.
The sheer scale of the payment is an implied acknowledgment that mistakes were made, Burch said. The companies won’t admit any wrongdoing in the settlement.
The article continued to detail the tax break Cardinal aims to take advantage of that helps companies that suffered during the pandemic.
