On May 27, 2020 the Honorable Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a historically large settlement between Forest Laboratories and direct purchasers of the drug Namenda, represented by Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP and others. Counsel aggressively prosecuted this uniquely complicated antitrust case for over four-and-a-half years and reached the agreement to settle on the evening prior to jury selection giving plaintiffs “an outstanding recovery” according to Judge McMahon. The $750 million settlement was the largest amount ever paid by a single defendant in a Hatch-Waxman antitrust suit alleging impaired generic competition. Indeed, one legal analyst described the settlement as “among the most eye-popping sums ever shelled out by a drugmaker” in such a suit.
The case is In Re Namenda Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, No. 15-cv-07488 (S.D.N.Y.).