Why are corporate fines for shady or illegal business practices so often less than the amount they made by doing those illegal practices? At that point, don’t the fines just become a cost of doing business?
Specifically thinking about Perdue Pharma. PBS article says they made $35billion pushing opioids, but the current court case is only seeking $6billion on fines. Ignoring the Sackler’s immunity request, this is still a net win.
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Your calculation is off.
OxyContin has generated $35 billion in revenue.
First of all, revenue isn’t profit. The profit is much smaller and would be what any fine relates to.
Second, much of the OxyContin business was entirely legitimate and the drug does work extremely well. The issue is that Purdue advertised and pushed it to doctors who, based on Purdue’s false advertisements, gave it too willingly and too frequently to too many patients.
If Purdue had knowingly marketed an entirely defective drug that harmed every single patient who received it and they had generated $35 billion in profit instead of revenue, then the fine should exceed those $35 billion.
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