The Alberta Court of the King's Bench has approved the distribution of the $7.5 million payout from the class action suit against pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).The initial lawsuit alleged that an antidepressant manufactured by GSK, called Paxil, caused birth defects in children whose mothers took the drug during pregnancy.The suit, Singh v. GlaxoSmithKline Inc., was settled a while ago, but only on September 8 did Justice Janice Ashcroft approve the appropriate distribution of the funds.The plaintiffs in the case, Fiona Singh and her son Muzaffar Hussain, brought the action against GSK in 2012 after they alleged that women who took the antidepressant Paxil while pregnant suffered an increased likelihood of congenital malformations in their child once it was born."There are no ‘winners’ in this case—many people suffered serious congenital birth defects as a result of the drug Paxil," said Calgary-based lawyer Jonathan Denis in an interview with the magazine Canadian Lawyer..Denis, who is the former Alberta Minister of Justice, stated that while he was pleased with the outcome of the settlement, "we are hopeful that cases such as this provide an incentive for pharmaceutical manufacturers to take greater care in testing their products before they reach the market and avoiding other situations like this.”Denis' firm, Guardian Law Group LLP, acted on behalf of several claimants in the suit.The $7.5 million settlement was awarded all the way back in September 2024, but it has taken almost two years for the court to decide what portion of that money should go to who.Under the distribution order, anyone considered an "eligible claimant," meaning someone who has suffered as a result of taking Paxil while pregnant, must confirm that they have not been compensated by September 29.The distribution order also grants $525,000 to be given to provincial and territorial health insurers..Other payments include $560,235.25 to the claims administrator, $61,592.70 to the claims officer, $10,000 to Singh as an honorarium, and $28,037.50 each to Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, GSK’s counsel, and Napoli Shkolnik Canada, reimbursing them for the costs of the certification and settlement-approval notices.The funds distributed to the plaintiff's lawyers faced a complicated claims dispute due to the fact that Singh changed lawyers in 2019, moving from Merchant Law Group to a consortium.This change, and the dispute that followed between law firms around who was owed what, is the main reason why the final distribution settlement took so long to figure out. The final decision was a 90/10 split between the two firms of the consortium Napoli Shkolnik Canada ($537,961.62) and Guardian ($59,772.40). Merchant Law, Singh's original counsel, was also awarded $597,724.02 plus $29,886.20 in GST as its share of class counsel fees.
