To: Board of Supervisors
From: County Administrative Office
Agenda Section: Consent
SUBJECT:
title
Approval of Opioid Litigation Settlement
end
RECOMMENDATION(S):
Recommendation
That the Board of Supervisors:
1. Approve a settlement agreement in the opioid litigation with Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson and
2. Authorize the Chair or Vice Chair to sign the final settlement documents for the named defendants.
Body
SOURCE OF FUNDING:
General Fund
DISCUSSION:
A settlement agreement has been reached between representatives of political subdivisions across the county and Johnson & Johnson and the "Big Three" drug distributors (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson) regarding the litigation filed because of the national opioid epidemic. Pursuant to your Board's direction, the County of Humboldt joined the nationwide litigation in 2018 and is represented by the firm of Keller Rohrback.
The settlement agreements with the above-listed companies were reached in July 2021. The statewide distributions have been the subject of long-term negotiations between litigating public entities in California and the Attorney General's Office over allocation details. Under the terms of the Settlement, the "Big Three" distributors will pay a maximum of $21 billion over 18 years, while J&J will pay a maximum of $5 billion over no more than nine years, with approximately $22.8 billion in settlement proceeds payable to state and local subdivisions. In addition to the monetary proceeds, the agreement also provides for injunctive relief that requires changes to the distributors' and J&J's conduct. This reform package includes the creation of a clearinghouse through which the distributors will be required to account not only for their own shipments, but also the shipments of the other distributors, to detect, stop, and report suspicious Opioids orders. In addition, J&J will not market or sell any Opioid products in the ...
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