New York?s Met museum to remove Sackler family name from its galleries

New York's famed Metropolitan Museum of Art is going to remove the name of arguably its most controversial donor groups - the billionaire Sackler family - from its galleries.

The news comes in the wake of leading members of the US family, one of America's richest, being blamed for fueling the deadly opioids crisis in America with the aggressive selling of the family company's prescription narcotic painkiller, OxyContin.

The Met, which overlooks Central Park and houses some of the most famous and precious art works and antiquities in existence, announced on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with the descendants of two of the Sackler brothers behind OxyContin that seven named exhibition spaces at the institution would no longer carry the Sackler name.

This includes the Temple of Dendur exhibition space, the ancient Egyptian temple, described by the Met as one of the iconic and most beloved works of art it houses, which is displayed in the Sackler Wing.

The museum's decision follows several years of hundreds of civil lawsuits and civil and criminal investigations into some members of the Sackler family who own the Connecticut-based company Purdue Pharma, which makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin.

A New York bankruptcy judge in September approved a settlement by Purdue Pharma, including about $4.5bn from the company's billionaire Sackler family owners, even though the decision is still being challenged in court and provoked outrage from many critics and campaigners.

Some wanted to see those family members prevented from being shielded from further civil liability and also hoped some Sacklers would end up in prison, the likelihood of which faded when Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to three criminal charges last year and paid $8bn in fines and damages.