Ex-McKinsey Partner Sentenced in Obstruction Case

New York Times

23-05-2025

A former senior partner at McKinsey & Company was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison for destroying records that shed light on the firm's role in the national opioid crisis.
The partner, Martin Elling, 60, had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice as part of a federal case against the firm and its efforts to 'turbocharge' sales of OxyContin during an overdose epidemic that had already killed hundreds of thousands of people. McKinsey agreed to pay $650 million to end that investigation last December.
The records purge happened in 2018, when Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, was facing multiple lawsuits. Mr. Elling emailed a colleague who worked with him on the Purdue account, writing: 'It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything' other than 'eliminating all our documents and emails. Suspect not but as things get tougher there someone might turn to us.'
Mr. Elling was fired after The New York Times reported about the exchange in 2020.
After he sent that email, Mr. Elling proceeded to delete files related to his work with Purdue, according to the Justice Department, which performed a forensic analysis of his laptop.
In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Elling's legal team confirmed the sentencing and said he 'fully accepts responsibility for his conduct, for which he is extremely sorry.' Besides the six-month prison term, handed down in Federal District Court in Abingdon, Va., Mr. Elling will serve 1,000 hours of community service over two years of supervised release.
McKinsey's work with clients around the world has come under intense public scrutiny in recent years, leading the firm to pay out more than $1.5 billion in fines and penalties. Last year, McKinsey's work in China was the focus of a Senate hearing, and the firm agreed to pay more than $122 million to resolve a bribery investigation involving a branch in South Africa.
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