Abilify Global Settlement Order Released; Status to be Addressed on June 12

Introduction

U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers overseeing the Abilify litigation, released a global settlement order (PDF) on May 2, which details the parameters for the mediation of all cases to take place between May 1 and September 1, 2018. This was in view of setting a framework to aid the settlement process using the bellwether approach.

The parties have been given two weeks to define the ‘no pay’ characteristics where plaintiffs would not be eligible for compensation under the agreement, following which they will have 14 days to identify the cases that satisfy this condition within the centralized Abilify multidistrict litigation. The mediation process would initiate once these cases have been filtered out.

The next case management conference is scheduled for June 12, when the status of the global settlement process would be addressed. This news closely follows the May 1 decision when the defendants chose to settle before scheduled trial dates.

Over 800 Abilify lawsuits were centralized in October 2016, as a part of MDL No. 2734 (In Re: Abilify Compulsive Behavior Products Liability Litigation) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida against Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals alleging that they failed to warn the consumers and the medical community about the gambling risks associated with Abilify.

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