Three of the biggest tobacco brands have been ordered by the Canadian courts to pay compensation for a total amount of 11.3 billion euros. Historical.
The tobacco industry has just taken a hard hit. In Quebec (Canada), three cigarette manufacturers were sentenced on June 1 to pay 15.5 billion Canadian dollars (11.3 billion euros) in damages to tens of thousands of tobacco victims. A record in the land of caribou. These are Imperial Tobacco Canada (a subsidiary of British American Tobacco), Rothmans Benson & Hedges and Japan Tobacco International.
In this judicial soap opera, the Superior Court of Quebec had been seized within the framework of two class actions brought since 1998 on behalf of more than one million Quebecers. The trial itself, however, only opened in March 2012.
The civil party lawyers accused the tobacco companies of having conveyed “false information about their products and of having deliberately chosen not to use the parts of tobacco with a low nicotine content” in order to maintain the addiction of smokers.
Responsible for emphysemas, cancers….
Faced with these accusations, Judge Brian Riordan retained four main charges against the three multinationals, including breaches of the “general duty not to cause harm to others and the duty to inform clients of the risks and dangers of his products. “” In the fifty or so years of the class action period, and for the seventeen years since, corporations have made billions of dollars at the expense of the lungs, throats and general well-being of their customers ”, underlined the magistrate in a judgment composed of a block of 276 pages.
On the side of the winners, the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health, at the origin of one of the two appeals, described this sentence as “a great victory for the fight against smoking. The responsibility of tobacco companies has been recognized for emphysema, lung cancer or cancer of the throat of smokers or ex-smokers in Quebec, unprecedented in Canada, ”said the organization.
The three multinationals will appeal
And Me Bruce Johnston, representative of the victims to outbid: “This judgment sends a strong message that no industry is above the law. Gone are the days of tolerating a business choosing its profits over the health of its customers with impunity. ”
On the other hand, the three convicted multinationals have announced that they are appealing the verdict. Japan Tobacco International (JTI), for example, believes that the evidence presented at trial does not support the conclusions reached by the Court.
“Since the 1950s, Canadians have been very aware of the health risks posed by cigarettes,” JTI explained, noting that health warnings have been printed on cigarette packages for more than 40 years.
A non-suspensive appeal
However, this is a non-suspensive appeal, the judge having ordered the tobacco companies to begin the payment of damages, even if the case was appealed. The three companies will therefore have to spend more than a billion dollars by the end of July. Of the $ 15.5 billion in damages, Imperial Tobacco Canada will pay the bulk of it with a conviction approaching $ 10.5 billion Canadian.
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