[Intl-tobacco] Latin American lawmakers favor joint tobacco suit (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Latin American lawmakers favor joint tobacco suit
by David Monjaraz
Source: Reuters, Tuesday, 7/25/00

MEXICO CITY, July 25 (Reuters) - A group of lawmakers from across Latin
America agreed on Tuesday to pressure their governments to sue large
tobacco companies over health costs, a Mexican deputy said.

``There's a consensus in most Latin American countries to formulate the
lawsuit,'' Deputy Ricardo Padilla of the leftist Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) told Reuters, adding that any suit would have to be
presented by governments.

Inspired by a Florida jury verdict directing big cigarette manufacturers
to pay sick smokers $145 billion in punitive damages, legislators from 14
countries will consult with lawyers and present their governments with
legal proposals, Padilla said.

Head of the health committee in Mexico's lower house, he said that his
counterparts from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela,
Ecuador and six Central American nations had agreed to form a common
front.

``The whole of Latin America will present a suit, en bloc, against the
multinationals,'' he said.

The deputy said the targets would include Philip Morris Cos. (NYSE:MO -
news), British American Tobacco Plc. (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland:
BATS.L) and R.J.  Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:RJR - news), as
well as their subsidiaries in Latin America.

The agreement preceded a two-day meeting of Latin lawmakers in Mexico City
on Thursday and Friday. U.S. and Canadian legislators are also expected to
attend the conference, dubbed ``For a Tobacco-Free World.''

Padilla said the Latin Americans had agreed to seek consultations with the
lawyers who won a July 14 verdict in Miami by which a Florida state court
jury directed the five largest U.S. cigarette makers to pay $145 billion
as punishment for making up to 500,000 Florida smokers sick.

The verdict has been appealed, and its review could take years.

Mexican health authorities say that 15 million of the country's 98 million
people are smokers and that around 122 people a day die from diseases
believed to be related to smoking.