Merck & Co. Inc. has already paid nearly $1 billion to the federal government to resolve claims that it misbranded its painkiller Vioxx. To make matters worse, the drug giant has now lost a bid to keep Merck’s shareholders from seeing potentially damaging documents that the company turned over to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a seven-page decision issued December 12, U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler ordered Merck to produce the documents in multidistrict securities litigation involving Vioxx. He ruled that Merck waived the attorney-client privilege for the documents by turning them over to the Justice Department, even though the department signed an agreement promising to keep the documents confidential.
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