Walmart has agreed to pay $50 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging its pharmacies filled hundreds of thousands of illegal prescriptions for controlled substances, the Justice Department announced Friday. The settlement addresses claims that the retailer contributed to the opioid crisis by failing to report suspicious orders and allegedly ignoring concerns from its own pharmacists.
The agreement resolves a legal action filed in 2020 that accused the company of failing to report suspicious orders to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The government alleged that Walmart’s compliance team knowingly processed invalid prescriptions from prescribers operating as "pill mills." According to court documents, Walmart shipped approximately 37.5 million controlled-substance orders over an approximately four-year period but reported only 204 suspicious orders to the DEA.
Under the terms of the settlement, Walmart will create a hotline for employees and patients to report suspected illegal dispensing. The company is also required to monitor dispensing activity at its pharmacies and create a system to review doctors suspected of improper prescribing practices. DEA Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz stated that the settlement addresses past conduct while establishing compliance obligations intended to prevent future failures.
The $50 million payment is part of a series of legal resolutions involving major pharmacy operators; Walmart previously agreed to a $1.3 billion settlement in 2022 to resolve state-level claims, while Kroger reached a $1.2 billion settlement in 2023. According to the CDC, approximately 806,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription drugs between 1999 and 2023.
The settlement sets compliance obligations for how the retail pharmacy must monitor and report suspicious orders to federal authorities. By requiring a review process for physicians, the deal places a burden of verification on the pharmacy at the point of sale. While the $50 million payment resolves the 2020 federal lawsuit, the new compliance measures are designed to strengthen safeguards and help prevent the diversion of addictive medications.