Sorry, that’s neither the point nor the case.

Documents discovered in U.S. tobacco litigation have provided information about Big Tobacco’s activities elsewhere, including Europe.

Example: “We now have a clear view of the tobacco industry’s strategies in Switzerland as a result of lawsuits in the United States which have made millions of pages of previously secret tobacco industry documents public.”
http://repositories.cdlib.org/ctcre/tcpmi/Swiss2001/

Example: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/luy51c00

Example: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mfq20d00

Example: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/rkt49c00

Thus Mr. Davani’s request. We may expect this case to provide more internal documents that enlarge our understanding of Big Tobacco’s activities in Europe, what’s spreading smoking in Europe, what’s undermining health efforts in Europe, and so on.

And of course it goes the other way too. What Big Tobacco does in Europe has informed and become part of legal action in the U.S., including this case. That’s pretty much inevitable when Big Tobacco conspires globally; its documents here become incriminating there, and vice versa.

“having “secret documents” is not a RICO violation, its not illegal”

I all depends on what you do with them. Just ask Mr. Gulson:
http://www.tobacco-on-trial.com/archives/2005/02/16/frederick-gulson

You miss the point.

The point is that what happens “over there” is outside the purview of the American justice system.

Its not even on trial.

Incidentally, having “secret documents” is not a RICO violation, its not illegal, and by itself its not even suspicious. In fact, the more secret the documents, the less relevant they are to allegations of public deception.

Altria, which was incorporated in 1985 (as Philip Morris Companies Inc.), effectively and actively controls the activities of all of its subsidiaries, including Defendant Philip Morris USA Inc. and Philip Morris International, Inc.

Overall policies on all major aspects of the companies operations are set by Altria management, and senior Altria executives, employees, and agents participate in and/or control decisions about how the operating companies implement those policies, through both formal and informal reporting relationships.

Altria’s relationship with its subsidiaries was structured to maintain consistency among its companies on sensitive issues such as smoking and health, addiction, and passive smoking. The CEO and Chairman of Philip Morris Companies, Geoffrey Bible, was the ultimate authority on content of public statements on smoking and health made by Philip Morris Companies
subsidiaries, including Philip Morris USA.

The document retention procedures and policies that led to the destruction of email from senior executives at Philip Morris while this lawsuit was pending were created with and approved by Altria.

Through to the late 1990s, the General Counsel of Philip Morris, along with all Philip Morris in-house counsel, were actually employees of Altria Corporate Services (ACS) and reported directly to the General Counsel of Altria.

Worldwide Scientific Affairs (WSA) is a group established by Altria to coordinate science and science policy, including policy about smoking and health issues, across all of the Altria companies. WSA was organized in regions covering various operating company subsidiaries, including Philip Morris, Philip Morris International, and their subsidiaries, in various parts of the world; scientific policy was coordinated across these regions and Altria subsidiaries.

Altria has a Scientific Research Review Committee (SRRC) with responsibility for overseeing all scientific studies, related to tobacco, smoke and/or smoking, conducted or funded by Philip Morris Companies or any of its subsidiaries around the world.

Worldwide Regulatory Affairs was a department established by Altria to coordinate and ensure consistency in regulatory policy statements and responses across all of the Altria companies.

Altria controls Philip Morris’s communications on sensitive issues such as litigation against Philip Morris, Philip Morris’s opposition to federal excise taxes on cigarettes, and Philip Morris’s support for FDA regulation of tobacco products,

It is disingenuous to argue, as Altria does, that its control, through the reporting relationship, of decisions taken by Altria Corporate Services (ACS) employees on behalf of its subsidiaries does not constitute control of those decisions.

It is a convenient fiction, and on paper it’s entirely true. In the real world of course it’s hogwash. Not only is the line pretty thin between Philip Morris here and Philip Morris there, the lines between any of the players that comprise Big Tobacco are pretty thin. That’s what Frederick Gulson’s testimony in this trial was about.

However its significance goes way beyond this trial. Smokefree advocates in Europe are interested in secret tobacco industry memos for the same reason smokefree advocates in the US are: these documents reveal how Big Tobacco operates, how it engineers product for addicction, how it recruits kids, how it defeats smokefree policies, how it covers up its secrets, how it manufactures and distributes its disinformation. This is critical to understanding industry behavior in America and worldwide.

Gene,

With connections to the alleged predicate RICO acts tenuous, how long Altria will remain a defendant in this lawsuit is questionable.

But apart from that, as you know, Altria is a holding company. It doesn’t sell cigarettes in Europe or elsewhere, nor does it manufacture them or market them. This isn’t just semantics, this is the legal reality.

I own shares of Merck. . .that doesn’t mean I manufacture pharmaceuticals. It certainly doesn’t mean I have access to Merck’s secret internal documents!

The subsidiary that *does* conduct business in Europe, PM International, has never sold a cigarette in the United States, and is not a defendant in this lawsuit. Furthermore, the jurisdiction of the RICO statute, the American Federal Court system, Judge Kessler, and the American gov’t does not extend over foreign companies such as PMINTL and their European business.

As such, Judge Kessler lacks the jurisdiction to compel PMINTL to turn over any documents in this case. Its that simple. She also lacks the jurisdiction to influence their marketing policy outside the United States.

As a holding company, the actual defendant, Altria, is legitimately not likely in possession of *any* “secret” European tobacco documents. Whether or not Altria would (or even could) compel PMINTL to turn over its “secret” documents is another matter. Possibly it could, but that certainly isn’t going to happen in this case.

In this trial Frederick Gulson provided compelling examples of this with respect to document destruction.

Gulson says BAT, Brown and Williamson, and BAT operating companies all shared research. BAT Australia incriminating documents were incriminating for other tobacco companies. So Wills document destruction policy was the same as BAT policy was the same as Tobacco Institute of Australia policy.

In the AFCO case the Tobacco Institute of Australia was being sued to stop making misleading statements that secondhand smoke was OK. Gulson says Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, and BATCO decided BAT Australia wouldn’t settle the case. Why? Settlement would entail admissions that might later be used to hold other tobacco companies accountable for effects of secondhand smoke.

Strategies developed by the tobacco industry in the U.S. to spread smoking and undermine health efforts, are then deployed by the industry in countries around the world:

http://www.smokefreeforhealth.org/studies/OngGlantz.htm

http://repositories.cdlib.org/ctcre/tcpmi/Swiss2001/

http://www.essentialaction.org/addicted/addicted.html

This is why advocates like Mr. Davani are looking for documents about tobacco industry activity in Europe. They know it will inform and guide their advocacy, and help them educate the public on how tobacco is promoted in their countries.

I know you mean that the defendants aren’t _on trial_ for selling cigarettes in Europe, but Altria, which in a broad sense does sell cigarettes in Europe, remains a defendant.

Testimony on Marlboro/Formula One racing and promotion in Europe has been admitted, though only as such promotion bleeds into the US market. Although this aspect would seem a rich vein to mine, no relevant “secret” documents have been admitted to my knowledge.

Some Europe-specific documents and compilations are listed at: http://www.tobacco.org/resources/documents/secretdocuments.html

The databases which hold many European documents are of course:

http://www.tobaccodocuments.org

and

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/

As you know, the tobacco industry defendants in this lawsuit don’t sell cigarettes in Europe.

If you want the “secret” European tobacco documents from the European tobacco companies, you’ll have to get them yourself!

Best wishes from Vienna

(Mr.) K. Davani (Ph.D. Law)