Tobacco.org

• BAT May Have to Pay Italian Cartel Fine, Court Says (Update2) 

British American Tobacco Plc's Italian unit may have to pay all of an antitrust fine levied in a price-fixing case involving the company's predecessor, the European Union's highest court said.

Italian regulators fined BAT's Ente Tabacchi Italiani and Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris 70 million euros ($103 million) in 2003, the year BAT acquired ETI. The tobacco makers challenged the decision, arguing that part of the fine should be paid by ETI's predecessor, Italy's state-run tobacco agency.

``Responsibility for breach of the competition rules can be passed on from one economic entity to the one that succeeds it, if both answer to the same public authority,'' the European Court of Justice's highest chamber of 13 judges ruled in Luxembourg today. . . .

Philip Morris already paid its fine, Claudio Tesauro, a lawyer for the company, said in an interview yesterday. The company acted in support of BAT in the case, said Tesauro, a partner with Rome-based law firm Bonelli Erede Pappalardo.

The case is C-280/06, Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato v. Ente Tabacchi Italiani.

Jump to full article »