US government cuts penalty on tobacco firms as racketeering case close
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《英国医生杂志》
The US Justice Department has announced that it will seek $10bn (?.5bn; �8.2bn) in penalties from the country抯 six largest tobacco companies to fund a five year smoking cessation programme. It had previously demanded $130bn for a 25 year effort designed to help all 45 million current US smokers kick the habit.
The sudden shift came on the closing day of the government抯 civil case against racketeering by "big tobacco." Democratic politicians and public health activists immediately accused the government of caving in to the industry.
Judge Gladys Kessler, who is hearing the case in the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, also questioned the move, telling the court: "Perhaps it suggests that additional influences have been brought to bear on what the government抯 case is."
The lawsuit, filed in the Clinton era, went to trial last September. The government has charged six tobacco companies and two industry groups with a 50 year conspiracy to hide the dangers to health and addictive power of cigarettes. The US brought the case under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, passed in 1970 to prosecute organised crime.
The government had originally called for $280bn, the sum it claimed the industry had made by selling cigarettes to minors after the act became law. But an appeals court ruled this February that this "disgorgement," which sought recovery of past profits to prevent future misdeeds, was not authorised under this law.
Government lawyers said they changed their demands so they would comply with the appeals court抯 ruling that penalties under the act must be "forward looking." They say the smaller sum would pay for a smoking cessation programme for all smokers who become addicted in the year after the current case is decided.
Government lawyers trying the case had pushed for a $130bn programme, arguing that it was justified to prevent future wrongdoing by the industry, according to the New York Times (www.nytimes.com, 16 June, "Lawyers fought US move to curb tobacco penalty"). But senior officials in the Justice Department overrode their concerns, the paper reported. One of them, Robert McCallum, associate attorney general, is a friend of President Bush and a partner in a law firm that has represented the tobacco company R J Reynolds.
Meanwhile, industry lawyers questioned whether even the scaled down smoking cessation programme could be considered forward looking under the 1970 act.
Last week the Justice Department said its professional ethics office would investigate whether the decision to cut the demands had been politically influenced. Judge Kessler called for a meeting on 18 June with lawyers from both sides to discuss the penalty. The judge does not have to abide by the government抯 penalty request.
The defendants in the case are Philip Morris, R J Reynolds, British American Tobacco, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco, and the Liggett Group.(New Jersey Anne Harding)
The sudden shift came on the closing day of the government抯 civil case against racketeering by "big tobacco." Democratic politicians and public health activists immediately accused the government of caving in to the industry.
Judge Gladys Kessler, who is hearing the case in the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, also questioned the move, telling the court: "Perhaps it suggests that additional influences have been brought to bear on what the government抯 case is."
The lawsuit, filed in the Clinton era, went to trial last September. The government has charged six tobacco companies and two industry groups with a 50 year conspiracy to hide the dangers to health and addictive power of cigarettes. The US brought the case under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, passed in 1970 to prosecute organised crime.
The government had originally called for $280bn, the sum it claimed the industry had made by selling cigarettes to minors after the act became law. But an appeals court ruled this February that this "disgorgement," which sought recovery of past profits to prevent future misdeeds, was not authorised under this law.
Government lawyers said they changed their demands so they would comply with the appeals court抯 ruling that penalties under the act must be "forward looking." They say the smaller sum would pay for a smoking cessation programme for all smokers who become addicted in the year after the current case is decided.
Government lawyers trying the case had pushed for a $130bn programme, arguing that it was justified to prevent future wrongdoing by the industry, according to the New York Times (www.nytimes.com, 16 June, "Lawyers fought US move to curb tobacco penalty"). But senior officials in the Justice Department overrode their concerns, the paper reported. One of them, Robert McCallum, associate attorney general, is a friend of President Bush and a partner in a law firm that has represented the tobacco company R J Reynolds.
Meanwhile, industry lawyers questioned whether even the scaled down smoking cessation programme could be considered forward looking under the 1970 act.
Last week the Justice Department said its professional ethics office would investigate whether the decision to cut the demands had been politically influenced. Judge Kessler called for a meeting on 18 June with lawyers from both sides to discuss the penalty. The judge does not have to abide by the government抯 penalty request.
The defendants in the case are Philip Morris, R J Reynolds, British American Tobacco, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco, and the Liggett Group.(New Jersey Anne Harding)