McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis(npr.org)
npr.org
McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5155962/mckinsey-purdue-opioid-prosecution-doj
304 comments
A slap on the wrist. After a half million Americans have died from a crisis they helped kickstart, they should be facing criminal charges and jail time. The rich and powerful once again are allowed to buy their freedom.
A little unrelated to this whole thing, which does hit me a bit personally since my cousin back in Iowa died of opioid-related dependency issues, but I have interviewed a lot of consultants over the years for various roles and they are without question the most consistently bad interviews. It's funny, when I was in business school years ago (please forgive me) getting a job at McKinsey or BCG was more or less the crème de la crème of post-MBA gigs. Now, when I interview these people it's so transparent that yeah they're very smart, but they literally know nothing. They've spent years cycling in and out of "client engagements", so they can give you a 30k foot view of what's going on, on a dozen different things, but when you try to dig into the details there's not a lot there.
I'm probably casting a wide net since my sample size is large, and I'm sure there are great consultants at these places who have spent more than a few months on something, and could do good work in tech or hardware. But so far for me it's something like 1/70.
Maybe I'm just that asshole interviewer.
I'm probably casting a wide net since my sample size is large, and I'm sure there are great consultants at these places who have spent more than a few months on something, and could do good work in tech or hardware. But so far for me it's something like 1/70.
Maybe I'm just that asshole interviewer.
McKinsey is also responsible for the delay, deny, defend tactic of health insurance companies.
https://www.trialguides.com/products/from-good-hands-to-boxi...
https://www.trialguides.com/products/from-good-hands-to-boxi...
McKinsey is responsible for a lot of crimes, seemingly. Ultimately they just don't seem like a trustworthy company and I think they've avoided accountability by maintaining political connections (and donations). Another example of their untrustworthy practices - I recall accusations from a few years ago where they assured the US government that they were not doing work for the CCP, but then it turned out that they were (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/mckinsey-...). And then earlier this year at a US Senate hearing, it turned out McKinsey has once again been doing dirty work for the CCP by advising a large number of state owned corporations, who are involved in activities like building China's militarized artificial islands: https://youtu.be/tQ5kWfotE8Y
McKinsey makes something like 10 billion annually in revenue. This is a slap on the wrist. People need to be held accountable for these misdeeds.
Until you have serious bonus clawbacks for every such case, it is just cost of doing business. Just increasing the fines won't do much, they will just fire more people citing costs and the market will applaud that with rising stock price.
With all the overdose deaths and the lives ruined by opioids, I guess I'm a little bit surprised this didn't result in criminal charges for someone at McKinsey. Surely there must be some emails or texts that are inculpating.
If the company was not meaningfully involved in selling a dangerous addictive substance falsely marketed that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans then they should not face any penalty or fines. On the other hand, if they were, this is on a similar order of magnitude to American losses in World War 2, and their executives should be hung and company ended with shareholders zeroed out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
They could figure out how to divvy up their 65 life sentences.
Why do they get to pay their way out of this?
> According to Kavanaugh, former McKinsey senior partner Martin Elling [2] "personally deleted various Purdue related electronic materials from his McKinsey laptop with the intent to obstruct future investigations."
Corporate laptops are backed up, with backups offsite. I find it hard to believe that the only copy was on his laptop.
From the tweet [2], which has a screenshot of an email presumably sent by Martin Elling, he looks to be directing everyone to start deleting criminal evidence.
> McKinsey's payment, which includes $2 million paid to the Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, settles federal civil and criminal charges against the firm and includes a "deferred prosecution" agreement. Under the civil settlement, McKinsey is not admitting liability. A copy of the deferred prosecution agreement was not publicly available at the time of publication.
Given the opioid deaths in 2022 alone, McKinsey should be dissolved and the responsible parties serving jail time.
Can someone explain how this [3] is presented as a win, when only money has changed hands. They paid a fee for aiding in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
Does this ruling now shield them from any criminal repercussions at the state level?
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-...
[2] https://x.com/CoruscaKhaya/status/1676330070472814593
Here is the original document referenced in the tweet,
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/opioids/docs/#id=zhlp...
[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
*edit, found this
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/wp-content/uploads/20... which outlines at which times various McKinsey employees directed people to delete evidence.
They could figure out how to divvy up their 65 life sentences.
Why do they get to pay their way out of this?
> According to Kavanaugh, former McKinsey senior partner Martin Elling [2] "personally deleted various Purdue related electronic materials from his McKinsey laptop with the intent to obstruct future investigations."
Corporate laptops are backed up, with backups offsite. I find it hard to believe that the only copy was on his laptop.
From the tweet [2], which has a screenshot of an email presumably sent by Martin Elling, he looks to be directing everyone to start deleting criminal evidence.
> McKinsey's payment, which includes $2 million paid to the Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, settles federal civil and criminal charges against the firm and includes a "deferred prosecution" agreement. Under the civil settlement, McKinsey is not admitting liability. A copy of the deferred prosecution agreement was not publicly available at the time of publication.
Given the opioid deaths in 2022 alone, McKinsey should be dissolved and the responsible parties serving jail time.
Can someone explain how this [3] is presented as a win, when only money has changed hands. They paid a fee for aiding in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
Does this ruling now shield them from any criminal repercussions at the state level?
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-...
[2] https://x.com/CoruscaKhaya/status/1676330070472814593
Here is the original document referenced in the tweet,
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/opioids/docs/#id=zhlp...
[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
*edit, found this
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/wp-content/uploads/20... which outlines at which times various McKinsey employees directed people to delete evidence.
What percentage of the revenue was this? The stock price jump alone would many multiple times this fine.
Not nearly enough. Make it $650B and if they can't pay, break up the company.
McKinsey is a deeply unethical company that has skirted meaningful accountability over the last few decades. I highly recommend reading When McKinsey Comes To Town [1] - it really opened my eyes to how hypocritical and self-serving the culture is at the firm.
Maybe a small aside..but it’s very interesting how we as a society took very little learnings from the Crack epidemic during the early years of the Opioid Crisis. It is frustrating how people would rather bury their heads into the sand and reaffirm existing biases vs interrogating the contributing factors.
[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634029/when-mckinse...
Maybe a small aside..but it’s very interesting how we as a society took very little learnings from the Crack epidemic during the early years of the Opioid Crisis. It is frustrating how people would rather bury their heads into the sand and reaffirm existing biases vs interrogating the contributing factors.
[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634029/when-mckinse...
It’s unforgivable that we treat slow motion murder by certain people as acceptable—deserving of nothing more than a fine.
What is this construct where someone can just pay money to avoid personal accountability for crimes?
And I bet, for many, when the dust settles, the McKinsey name will still be held in relative high regard, and the opioid affected victims, on the streets, in poverty, will be blamed for ... not pulling themselves together, or as being a drag on society.
Corporations need death sentences. Like the sandy hook parents getting cash for infowars but infowars being allowed to continue its antisocial existence because money is a super fungible commodity with no limits.
Why hold McKinsey liable for what Purdue Pharma actually did?
Bad advice could have been thrown out by management, but instead, was accepted, and executed on.
Shouldn't the blame rest on Purdue directors and the board?
Bad advice could have been thrown out by management, but instead, was accepted, and executed on.
Shouldn't the blame rest on Purdue directors and the board?
This won't deter them. But something better than nothing.
I suspect McKinsey is responsible for most predatory behaviour related to Big Food, Big Tech and Big Pharma, just waiting for more of these lawsuits to surface.
The word "overdose" has to be the best PR campaign of all time. it is an addictive poison.
I am surprised they are allowed to exist. They aren’t doing anything useful anyway.
Not enough. Executives and consultants need to be sent to jail and held responsible.
For years, the government and court systems have been unable to punish these private corporations. At best, give them a slap on the wrist with these fines. People are tired of this bs. It's no surprise a large majority of the public didn't give 2 shits about a nobody health insurance CEO getting gunned down in the streets but rather unified around the idea of our shitty healthcare system.
For years, the government and court systems have been unable to punish these private corporations. At best, give them a slap on the wrist with these fines. People are tired of this bs. It's no surprise a large majority of the public didn't give 2 shits about a nobody health insurance CEO getting gunned down in the streets but rather unified around the idea of our shitty healthcare system.
All that death and misery and no one even went to jail.
I'm gonna sue Jack Daniels for hitting me
with a trunk of a big ol' live oak tree
He hurt me this morning with the bright sun light
I'm gonna sue Jack Daniels for what he did to my face last night!
with a trunk of a big ol' live oak tree
He hurt me this morning with the bright sun light
I'm gonna sue Jack Daniels for what he did to my face last night!
Is there any world crisis where McKinsey wasn’t involved/profited?
Most immoral company on the planet smh
Most immoral company on the planet smh
McK, Bain, and BCG should all be burned to the ground and the ashes scattered to the wind. Hot take, I know.
i'm assuming the supreme court will void this one too?
“That should cover it”
paging luigi