Categories
· Business (Tobacco)
USA, by State
· Florida
Organizations
· MO
· Nabisco
|
Jump to full article: Associated Press (AP), 2000-06-26
Author: Skip Wollenberg / Associated Press, 06/26/00
Intro: Philip Morris Cos. Inc. is paying $14.9 billion in cash for the nation's biggest cookie and cracker maker at the same time its domestic tobacco subsidiary faces the possibility of a multibillion-dollar penalty in a class-action suit in Florida. . .
In Miami, where a jury is deciding what if any penalty tobacco companies will pay in a class-action lawsuit over health claims, smokers' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt said Monday that the purchases show cigarette makers are "loaded with money'' even as they argue they cannot afford a punitive damage award in the tens of billions of dollars. . .
"The tobacco litigation has nothing to do with the acquisition today,'' Bible told a news conference Monday in New York. In a subsequent interview, he said "I don' t think it is at all relevant because the suit down there is with our domestic cigarette company and that's what they (the Florida jurors) have to focus on in their deliberations.''
Jump to full article »
Quotes from this article:
The tobacco litigation has nothing to do with the [Nabisco] acquisition today. . . I don't think it is at all relevant because the suit down there is with our domestic cigarette company and that's what they [the Engle jurors] have to focus on in their deliberations.
Geoffrey C. Bible, chairman and CEO of Philip Morris. Wollenberg, S., <I>Decision in tobacco suit looms as Philip Morris acquires Nabisco</I>
|