[U] Live Audio -- Oral Argument In US Sup. Ct. -- Sacklers' Escape Hatch / Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Maneuvers...

Updated @ 10 PM EST 12.05.2023: The full transcript of the argument (as a very large PDF) is now up on the Supremes' web dockets. And, reading it closely, I now am pretty sure both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh -- and maybe even Barrett -- will side with the US Trustee, and against the Sacklers. So Alito and Thomas will be two votes -- against seven. End update.

Here is the link. And. . . here is the CSPAN link -- if the Supremes' own link is too clogged.

Once we are rolling, I may drop some comments, below:

. . .Waiting on the "Oyez"

➢ We are underway. Counsel for US Bankruptcy Trustee Harrington now setting the table. . .

➢ Chief Justice Roberts is now questioning him. . .

➢ Justice Gorsuch is now questioning regarding "major questions" doctrine. . . "Congress doesn't hide elephants in mouseholes", says counsel for Harrington.

➢ And Congress was clear: this is not authorized by the bankruptcy statutes -- so as a "major question", Congress already answered it. The answer is "No" -- to the Sacklers' gambit.

➢ Justice Sotomayor is now asking about how an "opt-in" process would work. But the US Trustee is pointing out that the Sacklers must contribute ALL their assets, not just 15%, if they want to be released in bankruptcy. That's clear federal law.

➢ Justice Brown-Jackson is helping the US Trustee. . . by saying this "isn't it true -- that this is more than just trying to "torture" the word "appropriate". . . into it is "appropriate" for the alleged wrong-doers to keep ~$15 billion -- when they won't enter bankruptcy themselves. . . ."

➢ In the end, the way this would horribly impact injured Canadians (by depriving them of rights under local Canadian law, in Canada -- in injury lawsuits against the Sacklers, directly) might be what may control the Supremes' thinking. . .

➢ The US laws cannot extinuish claims against the Sacklers' that arise in Canada, by Sacklers' billions in sales, of Oxy- in Canada -- where the Sacklers DO NOT SURRENDER ALL THEIR ASSETS to the US Bankruptcy courts (for delivery to the injury plaintiffs, globally). . .

➢ There is a "constitutional due process problem" where people who are not even being allowed to ask to opt out, are bound -- by someone (i.e., Sacklers) that reaps the benefit of the laws that they haven't submitted to, themselves, says Justice Sotomayor. She is correct.

More soon. Smiling. . . .

नमस्ते