Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb is urging DC consumers to check their eligibility for compensation for certain generic drug purchases as the District joins 50 states and territories in seeking preliminary approval for a $39.1 million settlement with generic drug manufacturer Apotex over multiple conspiracies to inflate prices and limit competition.
“For years, Apotex engaged in anticompetitive and illegal conduct, conspiring with other generic drug companies to inflate the costs of numerous prescription drugs,” said Attorney General Schwalb. “Too many District residents pay too much for the medicines they need, and alongside a bipartisan coalition of AGs from nearly all states and territories, I'm working to make sure that every exploited patient gets their money back. As the District’s independent Attorney General, my office will continue to fight to protect consumers and level the playing field for law-abiding companies.”
Attorney General Schwalb and the multistate coalition previously announced the settlement in principle with Apotex last fall along with a $10 million settlement with Heritage Pharmaceuticals. At the time of that announcement, the settlement with Apotex was conditioned on the signatures of all necessary states and territories. Those signatures have been obtained, and the coalition is filing the settlement today in US District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford.
District residents who purchased a generic prescription drug listed here between May 2009 and December 2019 may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
The settlement agreements resolve allegations that both Apotex and Heritage engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade in numerous generic prescription drugs. As part of the settlement agreements, both Apotex and Heritage have agreed to injunctive relief to prevent future misconduct and to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.
The District is among a coalition of nearly all states and territories filing three antitrust complaints, starting first in 2016. The first Complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate Defendants, two individual Defendants, and 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements and are cooperating. The second Complaint was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 19 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers. The Complaint names 16 individual senior executive Defendants. The third complaint, which will go to trial first, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. Six additional pharmaceutical executives have entered into settlement agreements with the States and have been cooperating to support the States’ claims in all three cases.
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 competitor meetings during industry dinners, "girls nights out," lunches, cocktail parties, and golf outings, reinforced by frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages between industry executives that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. The complaints set forth defendants’ use of terms like "fair share," "playing nice in the sandbox," and "responsible competitor" to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices, and enforced a culture of collusion. Among the records obtained by the States is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the States’ cooperators that memorialized his discussions with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.
A copy of the settlement can be found here.
This matter was handled for the District by Assistant Attorney General Will Margrabe, Senior Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Arthur, and Antitrust and Nonprofit Enforcement Section Chief Adam Gitlin.
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, 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 the District in today’s announcement.