[Intl-tobacco] Sao Paulo State Government To Sue US Tobacco Companies (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

February 4, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
Sao Paulo State Government To Sue US Tobacco Companies
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP)--The Sao Paulo state government plans to sue U.S.
tobacco companies in a bid to recover money spent over the past 35 years in
treating smoking-related diseases, a local newspaper said Friday.
State Attorney General Marcio Sotelo Felippe told the Folha de Sao Paulo
newspaper that American lawyers have been hired to study the case and file
the lawsuit in a U.S. court.
Felippe did not say which companies would be sued nor for how much. His
office said he was traveling and unavailable for comment.
Sao Paulo would be the third Brazilian state to file a suit against American
tobacco companies in a U.S. court.
Last year, Rio de Janeiro hired four Texas lawyers to file a law suit
against 15 companies, including Philip Morris, Nabisco and Batus Corp.,
seeking reimbursement of at least $5 billion.
The state of Goias followed Rio's example and is also seeking reimbursement
of $5 billion.
The president of Brazil's Association of Tobacco Industries, Nestor Jost,
told the newspaper that lawsuits pertaining to a local issue had to be filed
in a Brazilian court.
But attorney Reginaldo Oscar de Catstro of the Brazilian Bar Association,
said there was nothing in the constitution that clearly impedes the states'
lawsuits from being filed in the courts of another country.