Tobacco industry

The tobacco industry includes companies that cigarettes, cigars, smoking tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco, snuff or bidis produce. This industry is heavily dominated by global corporations or establishments with a state monopoly.

Worldwide were employed in 1999 were approximately two million people in the cigarette industry and the suppliers. About two-thirds of all jobs were located in China, India and Indonesia. The three largest multinational tobacco companies had slightly more than 100,000 workers in 2003.

• 2.1 judicial proceedings of public authorities 2.1.1 Master Settlement Agreement (1998)
• 2.1.2 U.S. government against U.S. tobacco industry ( 1999-2010 )
• 2.1.3 EC agreements with Philip Morris (2004) and Japan Tobacco (2007)

Business

Tobacco companies

Within a few years, four private tobacco companies are of the many tobacco producers in the world left. Make 52.2 % of all cigarettes forth. The largest cigarette manufacturer, however, remains the state-owned Chinese tobacco company China National Tobacco Corporation with a market share of 32%.

More active tobacco company- regional:

• PT Gudang Garam (Indonesia)
• Tekel (Turkey)
• Fortune Tobacco Co. (Philippines)
• House of Prince (Denmark)
• Heintz van LANDEWYCK ( Luxembourg )
• Nakhla (Egypt)
• PM Polska.SA (Poland )

Supplier companies

• Heinr. Borgwaldt GmbH
• Hauni Maschinenbau AG / Körber AG
• GD of Bologna
• Heinrich Burghart GmbH
• Rhodia Acetow GmbH
• Focke & Co.
• Polski tytoin & Co.
• Riedel filter technique GmbH
• Koehl Maschinenbau AG

Justice process

Since the 1950s, liability and criminal proceedings were conducted against the tobacco industry in nearly 40 countries, most of them in the United States. This flood of litigation continues. In 2012, about 400 cases are pending against Philip Morris, for example, in the U.S., while Philip Morris International must lead in all other states in just over 150 cases as a defendant processes.

Judicial proceedings of public authorities

Master Settlement Agreement (1998)

U.S. States led in the 1990s, numerous damage suits against the tobacco industry. In 1998, 40 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories agreed with the U.S. tobacco industry to a Master Settlement Agreement. The main point, the U.S. tobacco industry agreed not to make the plaintiffs during 25 years, more than 200 billion U.S. dollars. They also agreed not to direct their advertising to young people. For the states waived the filing of additional claims.

U.S. government against U.S. tobacco industry (1999-2010)

The Department of Justice (DOJ ), the U.S. lodged in 1999 against the U.S. tobacco industry (including Philip Morris USA, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, Brown & Williamson Tobacco) a civil action on USDistrict Court Washington DC ( Federal District Court ) a. It was based on a law (so-called " Rico Act " or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ) of 1970, which was then enacted to combat the Mafia. The tobacco industry documents should prove that the accused companies have formed a kind of criminal cartel since the early 1950s in order to deceive their customers. All gains and interest, a total of 280 billion U.S. dollars, which had brought the tobacco industry since the 1950s, the U.S. government demanded back.

The trial opened on 21 September 2004. The admissibility of the income levy was denied by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia ( Federal Court of Appeal) in an interlocutory judgment on 4 February 2005. This judgment required the plaintiff to the Supreme Court of the United States ( Supreme Court of the United States ) on 18 July 2005 a revision. She was dismissed on 17 October 2005 by the Supreme Court because the Rico Act should not be applied retroactively. A second revision failed before the Supreme Court in 2010.

The Single Judge Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court ruled on August 17, 2006 in its comprehensive 1742 page judgment that cigarette smoking causing disease and death. Despite internal company recognition of this fact, the tobacco industry has systematically denied the harmful side effects of cigarettes in public for decades, distorted and trivialized. Therefore, it ordered a ban, according to which misleading in the United States from 1 January 2007, terms such as " mild" or "light" may no longer be used on the packaging or in advertising. In a clarification (so-called Clarification Order) of 16 March 2007, she expanded this prohibition to the U.S. export of such cigarettes. In addition, it undertook the sued firms to inform the public about the harmfulness of their products. On the imposition of fines they refrained, because this is the Supreme Court of the United States already deemed inadmissible in its judgment of 17 October 2005. The process, however, costs were imposed on the defendant.

Against this judgment the defendants filed an appeal with the competent federal appeals court. Because of the suspensive effect of the appeal imposed by the federal district court restrictions were not final. The court has ordered an exchange of correspondence on the parties, which was completed in May 2008.

EC agreements with Philip Morris (2004) and Japan Tobacco (2007)

The European Community and 10 of the EC Member States had made ​​various claims against Philip Morris International ( PMI) because of cigarette smuggling. On the other hand, PMI struggled against the European Commission before the European Court of Justice also provides a process. All existing litigation ended on 9 July 2004 with the completion of a multi-year agreement in place an effective system to combat cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting. The agreement provides for payments of PMI. The amount depends on various factors and could be more than 1 billion U.S. dollars in a period of 12 years.

On 5 October 2006, ten Member States and the European Commission have agreed ( on behalf of the European Community ) on the exact distribution of these payments. Until that time, PMI had already paid $ 325 million.

A similar agreement (English " Cooperation Agreement" ) completed the European Commission and 26 EU member states ( excluding the UK ) on 14 December 2007 with Japan Tobacco International (JTI ) and Japan Tobacco Holding BV ( JTH ) from. This is not merely by a settlement agreement, as no dispute with the EU was pending. It was agreed that the JT paid within 15 years a total of 400 million U.S. dollars to the Commission and the Member States, which can be used to combat the illegal trade in cigarettes. In addition, JT has committed to pay for a seizure of more than 50,000 real, smuggled cigarettes from their production even the taxes and duties.

Justice process in Europe of individuals

Only in recent years, damages brought by smokers and their families are also filed in European courts.

• The first action of a smoker in Germany against Reemtsma on damages for pain and suffering due to health damage was dismissed by the District Court of Arnsberg 2003. The Oberlandesgericht Hamm dismissed the appeal by the plaintiff from 2004 also.

• Ente Tabacchi Italiani (ETI, today BAT Italia ) was sentenced in March 2005 by the Civil Chamber of the Romans Appelationshofes to compensation. The court sentenced the cigarette manufacturers to pay 200,000 euros to the relatives who died in 1991 of a smoker. They had sued because ETI did not adequately informed about the risks of smoking before the introduction of health warnings on cigarette packs.

• The Romans Labour Court said in May 2005, the relatives of a deceased passive smoker 400,000 euros. She had worked for 7 years at the Ministry of Education in the same office as three heavy smokers. Your application, to put them on a smoke-free workplace, have been repeatedly rejected. The court recognized that passive smoking as smoking can cause cancer and exactly therefore granted the application.

• In the compensation process, " McTear v Imperial Tobacco " demanded the widow of a deceased smoker's lung cancer in 1993, which had begun in 1964 with smoking, 500,000 pounds in damages. She claimed that the cigarette manufacturers had failed on the health dangers of smoking to point it in an unlawful manner. The supreme civil court of Scotland, the " Court of Session " in Edinburgh, the action dismissed in a comprehensive 1121 pages judgment on 31 May 2005. A main argument of the court was that every discerning person free to decide if there is sufficient information location for their actions. Therefore, they must also take on the legal responsibility for their actions fully itself.

Lobbyism

About the lobbying of the tobacco industry until the 1990s, little is known. About not known in the public influences on people from politics, business and the media has been speculated, but lacked witnesses or documents that could prove this. This only changed in 1994 when Stanton Glantz, University of California, came into the possession of 10,000 internal documents of the tobacco companies Brown & Williamson and BAT. In 1998 the U.S. tobacco industry was also forced in the course of a liability process for further production of documents. The U.S. public was outraged when she learned of the unpublished research findings about the dangers of smoking and passive smoking and nicotine dependence.

So far, the tobacco industry more than 40 million pages of documents had to make publicly available. They are so extensive that they could not all be evaluated. It can be demonstrated however, that the main objectives of the tobacco industry have been the influence on the tax legislation, the prevention of advertising and sponsorship ban for tobacco products and the trivialisation of the health hazards of passive smoking.

The actions of the tobacco industry was similar in all countries: politicians, scientists and journalists have been rewarded with contracts, consulting contracts, invitations to conferences and sponsorship of events that they could be exploited for the concerns of the tobacco industry.

The influence of the tobacco industry on the Swiss and German politics in the 1980s and 1990s could be analyzed and is the basis of these documents.

The payment of scientists was disclosed in the so-called " affair Rylander ". From an investigation committee of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, was found in 2004 that her emeritus scientist, Ragnar Rylander, can not be regarded as an independent from the tobacco industry researchers, as it sustained as a consultant in his role and largely secret connections chatted with her. A cantonal criminal judgment against two scientists who were accused of defamation by Rylander had, the Swiss Federal Court repealed in 2003.

The foundation for behavior and environment ( verum) has been prepared by Verband ( Verband ) founded on 21 December 1992 as a public foundation under civil law and has its headquarters in Munich. It is the successor organization of the " Research Council on Smoking and Health ," the scientific department of the Verband. It is regarded as a lobby organization.

Credibility and honesty

In November 2005, the Reader 's Digest Europe Health Survey was published in 2005. In 13 countries, was asked about the credibility and honesty of 15 industries. Tobacco companies have ended up in 15th and last place with 6% of the respondents, which regarded this industry as completely or fairly trustworthy and honest.

The ranking: Pharmacies 65%, airlines 34%, auto industry 29%, health insurance 26%, banks and financial institutions 26%, pharmaceuticals 25 %, supermarkets 25 %, Media / Press 21% Holiday Travel Organizer 20 %, food 18%, life insurance 18%, 18% telephone companies, oil companies, 8%, 7% alcohol industry, tobacco companies 6%.

The German tobacco industry has engaged in a voluntary restraint agreement to the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG ) is obliged to present in the vicinity of schools and youth facilities no tobacco advertising and to establish any tobacco vending machines. All this agreement infringing tobacco vending machines should be removed until the end of 1997 by the vending machine plates.