June 7 (Reuters) - A court-appointed panel on Friday

recommended how to divvy up a pool of $2.13 billion in legal

fees from nationwide drug industry settlements over the U.S.

opioid crisis, with top firms set to receive hundreds of

millions of dollars.

The panel gave national firm Motley Rice the largest share,

with 18.6% of the funds, or $396 million. Other firms with large

shares include New York-based Simmons Hanly Conroy, with 11.4%,

or $244 million; California-based Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd,

with 8.2%, or $174 million; and California-based Lieff Cabraser

Heimann & Bernstein, with 5.65%, or $120 million.

The $2.13 billion fee pool comes out of settlements totaling

more than $46 billion that drugmakers, distributors and

pharmacies have reached to resolve lawsuit by local and Native

American tribal governments accusing them of fueling an epidemic

of opioid addiction.

The money was set aside as a so-called common benefit fund,

to compensate law firms for work they did that benefited all of

the plaintiffs in the litigation.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, who has overseen the

sprawling opioid litigation since 2017, also ruled Friday that

firms have until June 21 to appeal the panel's recommendations

before they become final.

The fees stem from settlements with drugmakers Johnson &

Johnson ( JNJ ), AbbVie ( ABBV ) and Teva Pharmaceutical

Industries; distributors Cencora ( COR ), McKesson

and Cardinal Health ( CAH ); and pharmacies CVS,

Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA ) and Walmart ( WMT ).

They do not include a settlement of up to $6 billion with

bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which is funded by that

company's Sackler family owners in exchange for a shield from

future lawsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing

whether that settlement is legal.

Opioid settlements, including both the nationwide deals and

separate agreements negotiated by individual states, now total

well over $50 billion. However, many state and local governments

have yet to develop detailed plans for how they will spend the

money to remedy the harms caused by opioids.

More than 800,000 people died of opioid overdoses from 1999

through 2023, according to data from the U.S. Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits say

that drugmakers downplayed the drugs' risks, and distributors

and pharmacies ignored red flags that they were being diverted

into illegal channels.