Good God. A class action suit against Merck over Vioxx was filed in federal court in Oklahoma City this afternoon.
Less than eight hours after Merck announced it was pulling the drug completely.
Damn. Those boys move quick.
There was already a case in the state court, and given today's news the
lawyers on the state court decided to file for Class Action status in
federal court. That's the way these things work. They were probably
getting ready for it, but today's news made it important that it was
filed ASAP, to get as much PR leverage as they could. Coming strictly
as a observer of the actual legal process: a more impressive turnaround
time has yet to be seen.
I think it has to be a universal rule that whenever a lawyer smells
blood in the water they find the ability to move quickly. The rest of
the time they procrastinate. I have more than ample evidence to back
this one up. But they just decided to act from on high: I feel for the
poor paralegal who had to whip that one up this morning. And for the
runner, who had to take it to the federal courthouse, and probably had
a local news crew following them the entire time. Been there, done that
and it's annoying as hell. And all for what? Well, the legal fees
reaped from being the first to file for class action status will buy
those boys and girls some yachts. Quick thinking if you have a firm to
support, but what does it mean in the long run? Will it actually solve
anything? Will Merck be forced to "learn its lesson." Will much needed
drugs be slowed up in the FDA approval process because Vioxx was one of
the first to be fast-tracked, hence a review of the entire process will
be put forth?
Crikeys.
Merck did the right thing and they're going to be crucified for it.
Hell, there's not any "going to be" about it. They already have been
crucified. It's taken less than a day to nail them up to the cross,
hammer in the nails, and slay their side. Not only on Wall Street,
either, as this lawsuit proves. They had to have known this, but
instead of covering it up and waiting for the lawsuits to come, buying
people off one at a time, they instead saw a risk to their customers
and pulled the drug, irregardless of the consequences. Yet, instead of
being rewarded for potentially saving lives, they're being forced to
take a bath in a vat of blood.
This whole thing proves one point: when it comes to corporate
governance, there is absolutely no financial incentive to do the right
thing. You pay for doing the right thing, and you can make money doing
the wrong thing, like hushing this whole thing up, keeping Vioxx on the
market and maybe having a few people die. The lawsuit aside, Merck's
stock dropped twenty-seven percent in value today because they did the right thing
That's really fucking sad. I think the stock should have gone up. I
think responsible corporate governance should be rewarded. After all,
isn't that what the shareholders claim they want? Or is that only when they're
the ones taking a bath that responsible corporate governance is
important? They can't have it both ways. The market, at the insistence
of their shareholders, shouldn't have dumped Merck. They should have
had faith and acted cautiously.