Friday, March 09, 2018
Oxycontin Maker Quietly Worked to Weaken Legal Doctrine That Could Lead to Jail Time for Executives
That being said, maybe this method, and/or well placed political contributions are the equivalent...
On "theIntercept" website Lee Fang tells us about it:
"Executives in multiple industries have long been kept up at night by knowledge of the looming power of the Responsible Corporate Office, or RCO doctrine, also known as the Park doctrine, a legal liability standard used largely to prosecute executives at companies responsible for affecting public health and safety. Under the Park doctrine, federal prosecutors could target senior executives and board members of opioid pharmaceutical companies for their role in the sprawling epidemic if violations of criminal law were proved true, regardless of whether they could prove knowledge or motivation.
Purdue helped to quietly finance an effort to unravel that doctrine, according to people with knowledge of the company’s activity.
Executives at Purdue were once charged using the corporate office doctrine in 2007, in a case that found that the company had 'misbranded' its drugs as less likely to be abused than other narcotics. The company agreed to pay a settlement of $634.5 million."
