JAPAN TOBACCO to join U.S. tobacco settlement (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Mike Tacelosky forwards the following article with the comment that the
settlement between the tobacco companies and the states is so bad that
Japan Tobacco -- not a party to the suit -- is eager to make payments
under the deal that no one has yet requested!

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org


JAPAN TOBACCO to join U.S. tobacco settlement

by Kyodo via NewsEdge
NewsEdge (8887)
AG;
Date: Wednesday, 12/2/98
----------------------<12101>----------------------
Japan Tobacco Inc.
(JT) said Tuesday it will pay part of the 206 billion dollars U.S. tobacco
companies agreed to pay states between 2000 and 2025 under a landmark deal
last
month. . .

JT's announcement came amid a move by each of the states involved in the
deal
to draft legislation requiring tobacco companies not involved in the deal to
pay a large sum of deposits.
               ===================
Kyodo via NewsEdge Corporation : TOKYO, Dec. 1 (Kyodo) _ Japan Tobacco Inc.
(JT) said Tuesday it will pay part of the 206 billion dollars U.S. tobacco
companies agreed to pay states between 2000 and 2025 under a landmark deal
last
month.

JT said it will pay some 170 million yen (about 1.38 million dollars) in
2000
and several hundred million yen the following years indefinitely in
accordance
to its U.S. market share.

Under the deal, the five major U.S. cigarette makers -- Philip Morris Cos.,
which is the world's largest, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., Brown and
Williamson
Tobacco Corp., Lorillard Inc., and smokeless tobacco maker UST Corp. --
agreed
to submit to advertising and marketing restrictions.

The settlement covers all 46 states that have reimbursement claims against
the
U.S. tobacco industry as well as those that have not sued.

JT's announcement came amid a move by each of the states involved in the
deal
to draft legislation requiring tobacco companies not involved in the deal to
pay a large sum of deposits.


Company officials said it would have been difficult for JT to continue doing
business in the United States without joining the deal.




JT said it plans to raise prices in the U.S. to make up for the payments.




The decision was made in view of ''special legal and cultural conditions in
the
United States'' and it should not affect its domestic business and
tobacco-related civil lawsuits at home, JT said.




JT said it expects to grab a 0.15% share of the U.S. cigarette market in
1998.





        [Copyright 1998, Kyodo News International]
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7:28 AM on 12/2/98