AG urges eligible Mississippians to register for compensation
Oct 31, 2024- Mississippi Attorney General Fitch joined a coalition of 50 states and territories announcing two significant cooperation agreements and settlements with Heritage Pharmaceuticals and Apotex totaling $49.1 million to resolve allegations that both companies engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs.
“Generic drugs are supposed to be a more affordable alternative, and through this litigation and these settlements, we are holding the companies that kept prices artificially high accountable for taking advantage of struggling families,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “My office is committed to taking action to lower your drug costs and we encourage any Mississippian who thinks they may be eligible to register today.”
If you purchased a generic prescription drug from either Heritage or Apotex between 2010 and 2016, you may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182, email info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
As part of their settlement agreements, both companies have agreed to cooperate in the ongoing multistate litigation, in which Mississippi is participating, against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives. Both companies have further agreed to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.
A motion for preliminary approval of the $10 million settlement with Heritage was filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford. A settlement with Apotex for $39.1 million is contingent upon obtaining signatures from all necessary states and territories and will be finalized and filed in the U.S. District Court in the near future. The settlements come as the states prepare for the first trial in the continuing lawsuits to be held in Hartford, Connecticut.
The cases all stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different conspiracies, a massive document database of over 20 million documents, and a phone records database containing millions of call detail records and contact information for over 600 sales and pricing individuals in the generics industry. Each complaint
addresses a different set of drugs and defendants, and lays out an interconnected web of industry executives where these competitors met with each other during industry dinners, “girls nights out,” lunches, cocktail parties, and golf outings, and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, defendants use terms like “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “responsible competitor” to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices and enforced an ingrained culture of collusion.
In addition to Mississippi, attorneys general from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico joined in the announcement.
