Walmart Settles DOJ Opioid Suit, Amount Secret
Walmart Settles DOJ Opioid Suit, Amount Secret
The News
Walmart has settled the federal lawsuit accusing it of unlawfully dispensing opioids from its pharmacies, the Justice Department confirmed Friday.
Neither Walmart nor the department disclosed how much the retailer is paying.
The suit, filed in December 2020, alleged Walmart violated the Controlled Substances Act by filling thousands of invalid prescriptions and failing to report suspicious drug orders at the height of the opioid epidemic.
Timeline
After a multiyear investigation, the Justice Department files a nationwide lawsuit against Walmart under the Controlled Substances Act, alleging the company's pharmacies filled thousands of invalid prescriptions and that it failed to report suspicious orders.
Walmart separately agrees to pay $3.1 billion to resolve claims by state and local governments over its pharmacies' role in the opioid crisis, according to the Financial Times.
Walmart and the Justice Department confirm a settlement of the federal case. The amount is not released.
Reactions
"We are pleased to resolve this matter and will continue supporting the exceptional work our pharmacists do every day to provide outstanding patient care," a Walmart spokesman said in an email to CBS News.
The Justice Department framed the deal as part of a broader enforcement push. "We will continue to hold accountable companies and individuals whose unlawful prescribing, marketing, dispensing or distributing practices contributed to the opioid crisis and put American communities at risk," a department spokesman said.
What's Next
With the federal case resolved, the dollar figure is the open question — settlement terms in Controlled Substances Act cases are typically spelled out in court filings and department announcements, but neither side has released one here.
Walmart continues to operate nearly 4,600 pharmacies nationwide, filling prescriptions for generic drugs, insulin, GLP-1 medications and other treatments, according to the company's website.
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The exposure Walmart avoided was enormous. If the company had been held liable, the Justice Department said it would have faced $67,627 for each unlawful prescription filled and $15,691 for each suspicious order it failed to report — penalties multiplied across thousands of alleged violations.
Federal prosecutors tied that conduct to a national death toll: more than 800,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2023, according to the Justice Department's account of the epidemic.
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