Remember the long and torturous road of the Vioxx litigation? A $4.85 billion settlement. Then multi-million dollar jury verdicts in Texas and New Jersey, some of which were reduced under state damage caps before being tossed aside completely on appeal in the spring.
The point we’re trying to make here is that, for Merck, the Vioxx litigation took the company down several unpredictable roads. So it’s perhaps somewhat understandable that Merck, along with five of its drug industry competitors, are a bit peeved over a proposed accounting rule that would require companies to disclose estimated costs of all continuing litigation. The Financial Accounting Standards Board — or FASB (pronounced “fasbee” by accounting insiders), says that such a rule would give investors important information. As it stands, companies have to disclose only the estimated costs when they believe it is probable they will lose a case. Here’s a WSJ story, and here’s a blog post from the Journal’s Health Blog.
See full Article.
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