Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered to pay the Australian government millions of dollars after unsuccessfully suing the nation over its world-first plain-packaging laws.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Australia legislated that cigarettes must be sold in unappealing packets with graphic health warnings.<\/p>\n
Philip Morris had tried to force the laws to be overturned, but a court dismissed its claim in 2015.<\/p>\n
The tobacco giant has now been ordered to pay the government\u2019s legal costs.<\/p>\n
The exact sum was redacted from the international Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) decision, but the Sydney Morning Herald reported it was as high as $50 million (\u00a330 million; $38 million).<\/p>\n
In May, Bloomberg reported that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had decided Australia\u2019s laws were a legitimate public health measure, making them more likely to be adopted overseas.<\/p>\n
After plain packaging was introduced, Philip Morris, Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco launched a constitutional challenge in Australia\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n
When that bid failed, Philip Morris went to the PCA to claim the legislation breached Australia\u2019s Bilateral Investment Treaty with Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
It sought an end to plain packaging, or billions of dollars in compensation.<\/p>\n
The court dismissed the company\u2019s case, calling it \u201can abuse of rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
Philip Morris then argued the government\u2019s claim for legal costs was unreasonable, saying it was well above claims made by Canada ($4.5 million) and the US ($3 million) in comparable cases.<\/p>\n
However, the court ruled the costs were reasonable because they did \u201cnot go beyond what is usual in other investment cases\u201d. It also acknowledged the \u201csignificant stakes involved\u201d regarding public health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered to pay the Australian government millions of dollars after unsuccessfully suing the nation over its world-first plain-packaging laws. In 2012, Australia legislated that cigarettes must be sold in unappealing packets with graphic health warnings. Philip Morris had tried to force the laws to be overturned, but a court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50087,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50083\/revisions\/50087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}