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Indivior has suffered shareholder outrage over the bonus for the former CEO who is incarcerated

Indivior plans to hold a shareholder uprising at this week’s annual meeting after London-listed drug maker retained bonuses for his former chief executive, despite being jailed for his role in the U.S. opioid crisis.

Chief Executive Officer Shaun Thaxter was sentenced to six months in prison last year and decided to pay $ 600,000 in fines and confiscation pleading guilty a failure to prevent the company from sharing false and misleading information about the safety of Suboxone Film with a state regulator. The drug is used to treat disorders of opioid use.

The company decided to keep the awards given to Thaxter by shareholders and advisors to major representatives in accordance with the long-term incentive plan, although the legal proceedings were a great success for Indivior.

Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, influential advisory groups, have advised investors to vote against the company’s payroll report, asking why Indivior has not applied malus and clawback provisions, forcing companies to reduce or cancel bonuses or force executives to reimburse them. circumstances.

According to the ISS, Thaxter left the company with more than 1m in indebted companies, valued at more than $ 1.5 million, which were not until 2022 and 2023.

The ISS said: “As CEO of the business since 2009, Shaun Thaxter is ultimately responsible for the economic and significant damage caused by the company’s mis-selling of Suboxone.”

The top 20 shareholders also appeared to criticize the remuneration committee for treating Thaxter as a “good leave” and keeping the awards despite the prison sentence.

The U.S. opioid epidemic it has cost about half a million lives in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many Americans have become addicted to prescription opioids and illegal versions of drugs. The U.S. Department of Justice, state attorneys general and local opioid officials have been tried in court for reimbursing high-cost health and law enforcement costs to combat the fall.

Indivior said the compensation committee has decided to keep its excellent LTIP awards “based on Mr. Thaxter’s leadership, based on years of positive operational performance, and the lack of discovery of personal misconduct or misconduct.”

Suboxone is used to treat opioid use disorders © George Frey / Bloomberg

Suboxone Film, which contains buprenorphine and naloxone, is designed to treat opioid addiction. The Justice Department complained that Thaxter had asked employees to develop a strategy for obtaining drug preference status with MassHealth, a Massachusetts regulator. Some employees shared false and misleading information about safety about children’s risk of accidental exposure.

MassHealth later announced that it would allow patients with children under the age of six to access the drug, as they received Medicaid, a U.S. government-sponsored health insurance program for low-income people.

Thaxter was not accused of deliberately deceiving MassHealth. Wick Sollers, Thaxter’s lawyer, said: “We believe it was entirely appropriate to decide that Mr Thaxter should be treated as a ‘goodbye’ in his case, and that he was not aware of the wrongs when it happened and gave permission to correct it. .

Thaxter is one of the few pharmacy executives to have been jailed for allegations related to the opioid crisis. He ran the company from 2009 until last year, before pleading guilty to the indictment, even when he was part of Reckitt Benckiser.

Reckitt paid $ 1.4 billion To resolve responsibility for the marketing of Suboxone to the US in 2019. Indivior and its subsidiary, Indivior Solutions, have previously agreed to pay $ 600 million to settle related liabilities.

Thaxter was paid a total of $ 2.1 million in 2019, as well as $ 557,300 in 2020. After leaving in June 2020, he received more than $ 1 million in salary instead of salary and benefits to cover 12 contracts. the right to give one month’s notice.

The ISS also advised them to vote against re-electing the chairman of the remuneration committee, arguing that the company had “decided to treat Thaxter as a good leave”. . . it raises serious questions about its independence and trial ”.


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