News
How the Vioxx mega-deal got done -
Lawyers hunkered down in Big Easy to hammer out settlement
Saturday, November 10, 2007
BY SUSAN TODD AND JEFF MAY
Star-Ledger Staff
In the days leading up to Merck's landmark Vioxx settlement, lawyers from both sides of the 3-year-old court battle holed up in a law office near the New Orleans Superdome.
Spread out in four conference rooms -- one was reserved as a sort of Geneva, where the toughest differences could be ironed out in a neutral space -- they worked 16 hours a day, negotiating a $4.85 billion agreement that could settle most of the remaining 60,000 Vioxx-related lawsuits against Merck.
They really had no choice.
On Sunday, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon had telephoned plaintiff attorney Russ Herman in New Orleans and his Merck counterpart, Doug Marvin in Washington, D.C. "You're not going to get a deal done by e-mail," Fallon told them firmly.
The judge didn't care where they went, Herman said yesterday from his New Orleans office, he just wanted them -- all of them -- in one place. Fallon wanted the settlement done by the end of the week.
They converged in New Orleans, where they averaged three hours of sleep a night and lived on pizza, gumbo, diet coke and coffee. And before dawn yesterday, they finalized the agreement, according to interviews with a handful of attorneys who participated in the negotiations.
For Merck, a settlement could end one of the darkest chapters in its history. The drugmaker, which has its headquarters in Whitehouse Station, pulled Vioxx off the market in 2004 after a study showed people using the pain-relief drug were at higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
"This is a good and responsible agreement," Merck Chief Executive Officer Richard Clark said yesterday during a conference call with Wall Street analysts and journalists. "This agreement also means we can concentrate more fully on our work."
Lawyers representing consumers who claim Vioxx caused their heart attacks or strokes also praised the agreement as a way of settling the cases and compensating their clients quickly. "It's a very good, reasonable resolution," said Herman, who was part of a team of plaintiff attorneys involved in the settlement negotiations.
The agreement provides for a third-party administrator, the BrownGreer law firm of Virginia, to determine the eligibility of the plaintiffs brought into the settlement, assign points to each claim and then, ultimately, divide the $4.85 billion among the eligible claimants.
The settlement will be triggered if 85 percent of the plaintiffs who claim to suffer heart attacks or strokes from taking Vioxx agree to enter the program -- a requirement the plaintiff attorneys are confident they will deliver. Attorneys for Merck said prospective claimants face a deadline in March to decide to enter the program.
"We believe this resolution comes at the right time for Merck," said Kenneth Frazier, who served as the company's general counsel until July, when he was promoted to lead its global health business. "Without this agreement, the litigation might very well have stretched on for years."
The soaring cost of defending the company against the litigation was one of the reasons motivating Merck to agree to a settlement. The company has already paid $1.9 billion for defending against the Vioxx lawsuits.
The four judges presiding over the bulk of the Vioxx cases decided months ago that it was time for attorneys on both sides to entertain the idea of a settlement.
Herman, the plaintiff attorney in New Orleans, said the judges, including Fallon and state Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee from Atlantic City, ordered negotiations to begin last December. The judges' message, said Arnold Levin, who helped negotiate the settlement, was it was a good time to get started because the litigation had matured, or progressed.
Over the course of the past 11 months, two teams of attorneys -- 10 in all -- met face-to-face as many as 50 times in a variety of cities across the country. The negotiations, which remained confidential until late Thursday, involved as many as 100 conference calls, Herman said.
"Negotiations over a multibillion settlement only work when they're done confidentially," Herman said, adding the attorneys were under orders by the judges to keep them secret.
In New Orleans, it was nearly 5 in the morning when the attorneys finalized the agreement. Most went off to their hotel rooms to nap or shower before they had to head over to a regularly scheduled conference before Judge Fallon.
John Brenner, a Princeton lawyer who has defended pharmaceutical companies, described the settlement as a win for Merck. "If it all comes to fruition, it allows them to shut down the litigation," he said.
From the start, Brenner said, Merck's strategy cut straight to the heart of a critical dynamic driving much of the litigation: If the plaintiff attorneys collected enough cases and waited long enough, the thinking was a check would come.
"Merck changed that template," Brenner said, by persisting in fighting case-by-case. "It was a bold strategy and it worked."
Susan Todd may be reached at stodd@starledger.com or (973) 392-4125. Star-Ledger staff writer George E. Jordan contributed to this story.
Contact: Dennis Carter
(804) 521-7200
dcarter@browngreer.com
Richmond VA - August 13, 2007
BROWNGREER APPOINTED PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE AND SPECIAL MASTER IN MULTIDISTRICT PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-Richmond, Virginia. BrownGreer PLC announced today that the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, in Orlando, Florida, has appointed BrownGreer PLC of Richmond, Virginia, to serve as the Project Management Office in the multidistrict litigation involving over 7,100 plaintiffs who have brought suits against AstraZeneca over its antidepressant drug Seroquel. As the Project Management Office, BrownGreer will coordinate case specific discovery for all these cases. The Court has directed BrownGreer to: determine the availability of witnesses for depositions; coordinate with liaison counsel for the parties, witnesses, and counsel for the witnesses to schedule depositions; facilitate the steps needed to adhere to the deposition and other discovery deadlines set by the Court; maintain a deposition calendar; facilitate (and, if necessary, direction by order) the resolution among the parties and deponents of scheduling conflicts and changes to the deposition schedule; and provide of regularly scheduled reports and other reports as requested on the progress of such discovery.
Orran Brown, a founder of the firm and its Chairman, has been appointed a Special Master to carry out and oversee these tasks, working with the parties and the Court. "We are delighted and honored by this appointment and the confidence of the Court and the parties in us," said Brown. "We will make sure this discovery runs smoothly, fairly, and efficiently."
BrownGreer specializes in solutions to multiple claim problems. Having played major roles in the Dalkon Shield, "fen-phen," and other billion dollar personal injury resolutions, as well as in many financial claims cases, the BrownGreer team includes attorneys, analysts, project managers, software developers, and claims processors who are experts in designing and running efficient methods to revolve multiple claims through voluntary settlement programs and those resulting from class actions or other legal vehicles. Providing full-service coverage of all the legal and administrative aspects of these claims programs, the firm serves corporations, trusts, settlement facilities, courts, and governmental entities that face or handle multiple claims.
For more information about BrownGreer, visit www.browngreer.com. Or, contact Dennis Carter at (804) 521-7200, or by e-mail at dcarter@browngreer.com.
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