Washington negotiates on tobacco rulings
According to a story that appeared over the weekend from the Associated Press, the U.S. Solicitor General has been meeting with lawyers representing the tobacco industry’s four largest companies in an effort to forestall an appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court to follow up on a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler that the tobacco industry had concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking over a period of decades. The government has been considering asking the Court to award it $280 billion in past company profits and $14 billion toward a national campaign to limit smoking. Those awards had been denied by lower federal courts, one of which nevertheless denied an appeal by the defendants last May.
Since the lawsuit invovled charges of racketeering under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), the losing defendants had vowed to pursue an appeal to reverse those charges. The conflicting goals are leading to an interesting stand-off. Both sides may stand to gain from negotiation. Although the companies undoubtedly would like to have the racketeering conviction dropped, there would seem to be little hope of that, giving the preponderance of the evidence.
Tobacco company defendants in the lawsuit are Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent company, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Investments Ltd.; and Lorillard Tobacco Co. A former U.S. subsidiary of British American Tobacco, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., merged with Reynolds in 2004.
Just three of those companies—Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard—supply nearly 90 percent of U.S. retail cigarette sales.
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