Jump to full article: New York Times, 2010-02-20
Author: DUFF WILSON
Intro: The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday to review a 2006 federal fraud racketeering conviction against the tobacco industry and to authorize the district judge in the case to require tobacco companies to give up as much as $280 billion in "ill-gotten gains." . . .
If the Supreme Court were to agree to reopen the case, "it puts everything back on the table," said Richard A. Daynard, a tobacco law specialist at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. "However rich these companies are, they're not quite that rich. The court would have to decide whether it wanted to bankrupt the companies."
David Adelman, a tobacco industry analyst at Morgan Stanley, predicted that the Supreme Court would accept the case. But he said it was unlikely that the necessary legal decisions would go against the tobacco companies to require them to pay the money the Justice Department was seeking.
"It's certainly not a good development for the industry," Mr. Adelman said, but added, "I think it's a manageable issue."
In its filing Friday, Philip Morris, maker of the dominant Marlboro brand, wrote that some of what it termed the trial judge's "flimsy" findings had penalized companies for exercising free-speech rights in questioning some of the emerging science on tobacco and addiction.
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