A coalition of 50 states and territories, led by Connecticut, announced on October 31, 2024 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. As part of their settlement agreements, both companies have agreed to cooperate in the ongoing multistate litigations led by Connecticut 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 on October 31, 2024 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.
Consumers who purchased a generic prescription drug manufactured by either Heritage or Apotex between 2010 and 2018 may be eligible for compensation. To determine eligibility: call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email [email protected] or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
A coalition of nearly all U.S. states and territories filed three antitrust complaints, beginning in 2016. 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, golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their alleged 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. 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 during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.
Connecticut’s Attiorney General stated in announcing the settlements: “Heritage and Apotex both participated in widespread conspiracies to jack up prices and block competition for generic prescription drugs. Their brazen collusion cost American families and our public healthcare programs millions of dollars. Both companies are now cooperating with our ongoing litigation, and we are very confident in our case heading toward our first trial in Connecticut.”
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