March 16, 2021 Biz in 60

Business in 60 Seconds

Sackler family increases opioid settlement offer to $4.3B Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma, have offered 4-point-3 billion dollars to resolve thousands of lawsuits linked to their powerful painkiller, OxyContin. Purdue is accused of fueling America's deadly opioid epidemic through the deceptive marketing of the drug. A group of around half of all US states has rejected a previous settlement offer of 3-billion dollars. Encrypted messaging app Signal blocked in China The encrypted messaging app, Signal, has stopped working in China without the use of a virtual private network. Signal is one of the last widely used apps in the country that allows users to send and receive messages that can't be accessed by a third party. The ban comes at a time of increasing internet censorship in China, where Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have long been blocked. Nokia plans to slash up to 10,000 jobs by 2023 Nokia is planning to slash up to 10-thousand jobs over the next two years as part of a wider restructuring plan. The job cuts come as the Finnish telecoms equipment maker tries to regain its competitiveness in the race to win orders for 5G networks. The company says the restructuring could cost as much as 835-million dollars by the end of 2023.