Teva settles opioid suits in Israel

The opioid case involving the Israeli drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (New York Stock Exchange: Tifa; level: Tifa) has been implicated and has now been settled in Israel. The Economic Court in Tel Aviv approved the claims against Teva Israel in this matter, and among other rulings decided that the insurance companies must pay Teva $40 million – the highest amount ever achieved in a derivative suit in Israel. .

This comes after settlements made in the United States last year with all 50 states in the United States, where Teva will pay $4.3 billion to end lawsuits filed against it over opioids without admitting any wrongdoing.

At the heart of the matter were allegations that US pharmaceutical companies, led by Purdue Pharma, controlled by the Sackler family, aggressively marketed pain-relieving narcotic drugs, while concealing that they contained addictive and dangerous ingredients. An estimated hundreds of thousands of victims died from drug overdoses in the case, which was declared a national emergency in the United States.

Two actions since 2019

Israel was also affected by the drug scandal. In 2019, two cases were opened in the Tel Aviv Economic Court ahead of a derivative suit alleging that Teva’s senior executives worked to “widely promote the use of opioids, while deviating from the prescribed medical indications for these drugs,” and that the company’s directors The CEO failed to supervise what was happening in the company. The lawsuits also alleged that Teva’s directors did not move to sue the company’s senior employees and directors of its subsidiaries for their alleged involvement in the case.

The lawsuits were postponed until the procedures abroad were completed. As settlement in the United States consolidated, prosecutors in Israel conducted a mediation process with Teva, which took place before retired Supreme Court Justice Zvi Zilbertal. The settlement reached by Teva’s board of directors was approved and received the force of a court decision by Judge Sigal Yacobi.

Under the settlement, Teva’s insurance company, which as far as we know is not Israeli, will pay the pharmaceutical company $40 million to close all claims and potential claims that Teva may have against its officers, executives, employees and associated companies. Regarding their liability for alleged damages to the company in the opioid case.

The plaintiffs who brought the derivative suits – Teva shareholders, Judith de Lange, Abraham Barak and Lightcom – will be compensated $532,000, and the attorneys who represented them will receive fees totaling $4,258,000. The Israel Securities Authority and the Ministry of Justice, whose opinion is required to approve settlements in derivative and representative actions, told the court that they did not oppose the settlement.

Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on September 26, 2024.

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