Kroger inks $1.4B settlement deal for opioid lawsuits

Gro­cery gi­ant Kroger has inked a $1.4 bil­lion deal to set­tle claims that its phar­ma­cies ex­ac­er­bat­ed the opi­oid cri­sis.

The com­pa­ny an­nounced Fri­day that it has agreed to pay up to $1.2 bil­lion to states and sub­di­vi­sions and $36 mil­lion to Na­tive Amer­i­can tribes over the course of 11 years, plus an­oth­er $177 mil­lion for le­gal fees. The first pay­ments be­gin this De­cem­ber.

“As a re­sult, in­clud­ed in our fi­nan­cial re­sults is a $1.4 bil­lion charge re­lat­ed to the set­tle­ment re­sult­ing in a loss per share of $1.54 this quar­ter,” CFO Gary Miller­chip said Fri­day on the com­pa­ny’s quar­ter­ly earn­ings call, per an Al­phaSense tran­script.

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