Did the tobacco companies deceive the American public about the health effects of smoking? The Department of Justice says yes and believes that it can prove it in court.
After five years of preparation, the largest civil racketeering trial in U.S. history, United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc., is scheduled to begin today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The trial is expected to last at least six months and include up to 300 witnesses. The government wants the tobacco companies to surrender, disgorge, in legal terms – $280 billion in past profits that was allegedly earned by fraud from the sale of cigarettes and is seeking a number of court-ordered reforms.
A win for the government could potentially bankrupt the tobacco companies.
The defendants include Philip Morris USA, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, the Lorillard Tobacco Company, the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation, the Liggett Group, British American Tobacco. Also named as defendants were two nonprofit cigarette trade organizations, the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute, Inc., both of which disbanded as a condition of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the states and the tobacco industry.
The government alleges that chief executives from the defendant companies met on December 15, 1953 at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan where they allegedly agreed to conduct false and misleading public relations and advertising campaigns to deceive consumers and others about the health effects of cigarettes in order to protect their profits.
Other allegations include:
* False statements denying that smoking and environmental tobacco smoke (sometimes called second hand smoke) causes disease;
* False statements denying that cigarettes are addictive;
* Manipulating nicotine in cigarettes to ensure addictiveness and disseminating false statements denying that manipulation;
* Marketing to youth despite making false statements denying that marketing;
* Marketing “light” and “low tar” cigarettes as less hazardous despite knowing that they are not;
* Failing to conduct independent research about the adverse health effects of smoking despite false statements that such research would be conducted;
* Failing to conduct or sponsor research aimed at developing less hazardous cigarettes despite false statements that such research was being pursued.
The defendants deny all allegations.
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