on may 10, 2007, purdue frederick company inc, a holding company affiliated with purdue pharma, along with 3 company executives, pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misbranding oxycontin by claiming that it was less addictive and less subject to abuse and diversion than other opioids" after the u.s. department of justice investigated the allegations. they pleaded guilty to a felony charge that it had fraudulently to misled the public about oxycontin's risk of addiction and had claimed to doctors and patients that oxycontin would cause less abuse and addiction than competing short-acting narcotics like percocet and vicodin." it was fined a total of , one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in u.s. history was put on five years' probation.