More than $40 trillion. That’s with a T. 

Those were the estimated claims facing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its founders, the Sackler family, when a bankruptcy court enjoined all litigation against them in 2019. In exchange for getting the Sacklers—who did not enter bankruptcy and who had all left the board of the company by that time—to chip in billions to fund a bankruptcy settlement, the company’s reorganization plan contained several nonconsensual releases that, in effect, permanently barred certain third-party claims against the Sacklers